FundamentalVR today announced the expansion of its educational platform, Fundamental Surgery, with a ‘Teaching Space’ feature, which allows multiple users to visit a virtual classroom for interactive lessons and meetings.

Earlier this year, FundamentalVR expanded its multimodal platform with its multiuser capability, which allows unlimited users to practice, learn, and teach together inside an operating room (OR).

The latest feature lets multiple users meet in a virtual classroom setting, complete with an interactive whiteboard, where they can conduct lessons, discuss a procedure before attempting it in the virtual OR, or debrief after practicing a skillset.

Teaching Space is available to current Fundamental Surgery customers at no additional cost.

WHY IT MATTERS

Medical device and pharma companies can save both time and money by bringing surgeons and key opinion leaders together into Teaching Space for briefings, Q&A sessions and one-on-one training without the need to travel.

Teaching Space is compatible across both of Fundamental Surgery's accredited modalities: HapticVR^TM and @HomeVR. HapticVR enables true skills acquisition by allowing surgeons to experience the same sights, sounds and feelings they would in a real procedure using off-the-shelf hardware (PCs/laptops, VR headset, and haptic arms), making it less than a tenth of the cost of current learning practices.

@HomeVR brings Fundamental Surgery’s educational simulations to standalone VR headsets such as Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus Plus.

THE LARGER CONTEXT

FundamentalVR closed a $5.67 million Series A round in October 2019, led by Downing Ventures, with participation from Tern PLC, Epic Private Equity and Brighteye Ventures.

Other digital companies in the surgical training space include Osso VR, which is being used by the UK’s Newcastle Surgical Training Centre, Oxford Medical Stimulation (OMS) which is being used at Oxford University and British startup Touch Surgery, which reportedly borrowed $70 million earlier this year to fund its training augmented reality technology for doctors.

ON THE RECORD

Peter Rainger, chief learning officer at FundamentalVR, said: “In our new Teaching Space, I can simply pick up a pen and draw out concepts on a whiteboard and allow trainees to annotate and write comments, all in real-time, whilst talking as if we were in the same room. The possibilities for this new flexible teaching space in the future are endless."

Richard Vincent, CEO of FundamentalVR , said: "With most classes currently being conducted remotely, it is a much-needed resource right now. Long-term, we believe Teaching Space to be a feature users will continue to benefit from whenever they need to meet for quick lessons or review procedures at a moment's notice."