Seeing clearly: How augmented reality can help medical students understand complex anatomy

The limits of traditional teaching methods

Kidney transplantation differs from other types of surgery. Instead of removing diseased tissue or repairing damage, a new organ is implanted into the body. There are different ways to perform these complex operations,  for instance a combined kidney and pancreas transplantation is sometimes performed (e.g. in patients with type I diabetes).

The complexity of these surgical procedures and complications means it is challenging to teach students about them outside of an operation theatre. Traditional visualisations such as CT scans offer 2D images which are difficult for medical students or residents to interpret. In particular, it is difficult for students to understand the spatial relations between the cross-sections that CT scans offer and real life 3D anatomy: 

As a surgeon, I can see and feel the anatomy while performing an operation. Attempts to communicate this in the context of education often fail due to very enthusiastic misconceptions on the part of residents, trainee surgeons and other colleagues such as: “Can’t the bowel package push the kidney out of place?” or ”Where is that kidney artery connected to?”
Dorottya de Vries (Transplant surgeon at LUMC Transplant Center)

A problem with traditional medical teaching is that is has relied on using 2D images, such as CT scans, to describe the three-dimensional body. Teachers find it challenging to piece these images together so that students can understand the 3D structure inherent in anatomy.

Augmented reality as digital solution for learning about transplant cases

To overcome this obstacle, LUMC and CFI developed AugMedicine: Transplant cases, an AR app built for the Microsoft Hololens. Augmented reality is a digital technology that enriches the real world with 3D holograms, and holds transformative potential for learning environments. 

The app uses a head-mounted display (Microsoft Hololens) to visualise can project  3D holograms. What this means for the classroom is that you can still see and interact with fellow learners and the teacher, while viewing the 3D hologram. With this interactive augmented reality application it is possible to project anatomical 3D models of patients post-transplantation as holograms in the real-life environment.

Maximising learning potential through augmented reality

During the development of the app, we decided to include an additional outcome to stimulate social learning through collaboration. For instance, multiple users can inspect, walk around, pinpoint and discuss a set of CT scans together.

This feature makes the application an ideal tool for education, enabling an active learning setting where groups of students can collaboratively learn about specific transplant cases under the supervision of a teacher.