I once studied medicine. This study comprised the need to learn tons of information about the anatomy and physiology of the human body. For example, for learning the anatomy of the brain, you have to orient yourself in the 3-dimensional situation of the brain to understand all structures, their connections, and their functions.
At that time, I just had books and a simple 3-dimensional paper model of the brain. AR technology would have tremendiously supported my learning. I would have been able to "fly" into the brain, look around, identify certain structures, see the function of each structure etc.
There was a video in this week's OER on how to use AR in medical education (https://youtu.be/dWf7oEwZKbs) - indeed, I would have loved to have this during my study!
Elske
I have seen some experiments with AR in healthcare at the institution where I work, and they are doing something a little different I think. They are trying to recreate the traditional dummy that doctors and nurses and work on so that it looks like someone, i.e. their expressions react as the nurse or doctor says or performs a procedure. For example, the dummy may smile if comforting words are said, or wince in pain if too much pressure is applied during a procedure. The thought process is that often some people are skills are missed during traditional education, that they are trying to establish with AR.
This seems like an important point when we think about when we should employ a technology solution to improve learning. I recently attended a AR/VR conference where some had spent a lot of money recreating a model of a pelvis in AR, but the apart from being a cool thing to have a go at it was in fact more difficult to use than picking up the model of the pelvis and looking at it. Technology has to drive at something that haven’t been able to do without it. The example of the medical dummy is a good one because the medical dummy is tried and trusted tool to teach students how to work with a patient, but it lacks the personal interaction that is requisite part of actual medical practice. This attempted solution really strikes at something that is currently impossible to reproduce.