ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how doctoral physical therapy (DPT) program on the Flagstaff campus of Northern Arizona University (NAU) used cinematic virtual reality (cine-VR) to create PREality experiences of actual patient care, captured at the patient's bedside in a local hospital. It discusses how we use PREality as part of Integrated Clinical Education (ICE) curriculum. Once in the actual clinical setting on their terminal clinical education, students often report feeling unprepared for and intimidated by an unfamiliar environment, complex patient interactions, and interprofessional collaboration fundamental to dynamically evolving acute care reality. While implementing our library has been multi-faceted, the chapter describes one particular implementation that pairs PREality experiences with simulation practice as part of ICE curriculum. PREality has the potential to make a significant and transformative contribution to the future of medical education by optimizing DPT students' early exposure to clinical environments while simultaneously assisting DPT programs with limited access to clinical sites.
