Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Perioperative Medicine
Date Submitted: Jun 19, 2025
Date Accepted: Mar 19, 2026
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Evaluating the impact of virtual reality on orthopedic trauma skills acquisition among surgical residents in Malaysia
ABSTRACT
Background:
Orthopedic trauma skills training is time consuming and expensive. Current training modalities heavily rely on synthetic bone models, anatomical lab simulations, or by assisting in surgeries (the apprenticeship model). Virtual reality (VR) appears to present a promising complement to current training modalities.
Objective:
This study evaluated the effectiveness of VR training on surgical performance and gauged learning preferences among orthopedic trauma residents in Malaysia.
Methods:
A total of 123 orthopedic residents were randomly assigned to two groups. One group practiced for 30 minutes on VR followed by a conventional nailing exercise on synthetic bones while the other group first performed the nailing exercise followed by VR practice. Performance was measured by time to completion of the exercise and participants completed a post-exercise survey.
Results:
Participants who completed VR training before the synthetic bone nailing exercise were significantly faster, completing the task on average 5 minutes quicker (p<0.05). In addition, VR training improved self-assessed performance during the exercise. Survey data revealed that while 43% of participants preferred conventional methods of learning (lectures, discussions, hands-on simulations), 89% of participants supported VR use as an adjunct to conventional learning methods. Only two participants indicated that conventional methods of learning are outdated.
Conclusions:
A single session of VR training significantly reduced completion times and perceived competence in orthopedic trauma simulation exercises. Although learners continue to value conventional training modalities, there is a strong desire to include VR as a supplementary tool. Its integration in surgical curricula may accelerate skill acquisition, especially in low-resource settings with limited access to high-fidelity simulation labs. In addition, availability of VR training modules in hospitals could help residents and junior consultants prepare for surgery.
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Copyright
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