Feel Your Pain

Abstract

The following is a collection of responses, critiques, and meditations on New England State University’s (NESU) recent decision to allow for the use of fully immersive, pain enabled virtual training environments (VTEs) in medical classrooms. This collection has been put together and edited by a team of student journalists to capture the wide range of feelings the campus community has surrounding the University’s decision. New England State University is the first academic institution in the world to allow pain enabled VTEs to be integrated into medical training. 

Previous iterations of VTEs relied on visual and auditory cues, limiting user mobility, and context within the virtual environment to convey experiences of pain and other symptoms to users. These earlier versions were heralded as effective tools to cultivate empathy in clinicians. Students from a range of medical disciplines utilized this technology to better understand what their patients were experiencing. Pain enabled VTEs use haptic feedback suits and headsets to mimic a wide range of symptoms, including but not limited to, pain, nausea, and dizziness. Users within fully immersive, pain enabled VTEs are able to physically experience symptoms associated with a wide range of disabilities, illnesses, and diseases.