CRI Healthcare Technology: VR Design for Medical Students
In 2025, Year 2 MBBS students at Imperial London took part in a two-day ShapesXR workshop as part of the Curriculum Research Integrated (CRI) Experiences: Healthcare Technology programme — an MBBS Research Skills initiative placing students in active research roles for a three-week experience. The central question driving the project: How can VR be used to assist students in reinforcing physiology knowledge and developing teamwork?
Students chose between two remote medicine scenarios — hyperbaric medicine or space medicine — and used ShapesXR to design interactive 3D environments reflecting the clinical context they were investigating.
Healthcare Technology
Academic Year 2024–25
Phase 1 Students
“How can VR be used to assist students in reinforcing physiology knowledge and developing teamwork?”
The Two-Day ShapesXR Workshop
Students had no prior VR or design experience. The workshop was designed to be fully accessible — no coding required. Working in pairs on Meta Quest headsets, they progressed from VR fundamentals through to building and presenting their own interactive medical environments.
- • VR navigation and orientation
- • 3D object creation and manipulation
- • Environment design basics
- • Introduction to collaboration in VR
- • Medical context exploration
- • Pair project development workshop
- • Build interactive medical environment
- • Focus on collaborative design
- • Peer presentations and feedback
- • Poster assessment briefing