LE SUEUR, MINN. – Porter Simonette carefully placed a dollop of digital hand sanitizer on the hands of the elderly man he saw inside his virtual reality headset. The high school senior mimed opening a container of yogurt, and following the on-screen instructions, began feeding his digital patient.
“Here’s some more yogurt,” he said, before asking, “You want some water?”
Simonette is part of a class of nine students at Le Sueur-Henderson High School, a school district about 60 miles southwest of Minneapolis. The class started using VR headsets this year to help students become certified nursing assistants in a bid to combat a dire shortage of nursing in the state.
As Simonette and others donned their VR headsets, Amanda Bell chimed in remotely from a laptop screen from her home in Indianapolis. Bell is part of a program helping 13 school districts in Minnesota’s rural south-central region provide nursing instruction.
Smaller school districts often don’t have the staff to teach specialized skills such as nursing, Bell said. And some of the students in the program, such as those in the Maple River School District 20 miles south of Mankato, have had to drive about an hour for in-person training.
“I have students where it’s not feasible for them to drive to an onsite location to practice their hands-on skills,” Bell said. “Being able to provide VR as a form of practice for them allows that kind of access that they otherwise wouldn’t have.”
A few of the students at the class at Le Sueur-Henderson said they just wanted to check out nursing. Others are like Simonette, who while still in high school has a vision of having a career in health care. Some students already work at long-term care facilities in the area.
After putting on the headset, the students see themselves inside of a virtual room with a resident in a long-term care facility. The program, though wonky at times, then guides them as they work through tasks such as helping the resident stand up from a wheelchair. Text boxes pop up in the student’s vision, telling them to lock the wheelchair brakes, and then tighten a gait belt, before helping the resident get up from the wheelchair. As students move their hands to mimic tightening the belt, sensors reflect their actions on screen.