Play it by Ear: An Immersive Ear Anatomy Tutorial

摘要

The anatomy of the ear and the bones surrounding it are intricate yet critical for medical professionals to know. Current best practices teach ear anatomy through two-dimensional representations, which poorly characterize the three-dimensional (3D), spatial nature of the anatomy and make it difficult to learn and visualize. In this work, we describe an immersive, stereoscopic visualization tool for the anatomy of the ear based on real patient data. We describe the interface and its construction. And we compare how well medical students learn ear anatomy in the simulation compared with more traditional learning methods. Our preliminary results suggest that virtual reality may be an effective tool for anatomy education in this context.