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The metaverse is based on immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, body tracking, tactile sensation, etc. A growing number of studies are demonstrating the potential of the metaverse as an attractive resource for learning medicine. However, in practice, medical teachers and students often encounter significant challenges when utilizing the underlying technologies, potentially leading to frustrating learning experiences. A significant part of the teaching time is often devoted to troubleshooting technical issues with the metaverse, and the medical content itself taking a backseat until students become proficient in navigating the metaverse environment. Therefore, it is essential to fit the metaverse's underlying technologies specifically for medical education, minimizing technical hurdles for both teachers and students. In this paper, we deal with this challenge and we present a collection of practical tips that serves as a guide for medical educators making decisions in this emerging field, where they may lack prior experience. Drawing on our observation with a cohort of 776 medical students, we conclude how to effectively identify, design, or implement educational applications tailored for efficient medical learning through the metaverse. Our work may support teachers considering metaverse learning platforms for their classrooms and it is a beneficial reference for the medical education community during the initial stages of implementing the metaverse for teaching.

The metaverse is based on immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, body tracking, tactile sensation, etc. A growing number of studies are demonstrating the potential of the metaverse as an attractive resource for learning medicine. However, in practice, medical teachers and students often encounter significant challenges when utilizing the underlying technologies, potentially leading to frustrating learning experiences. A significant part of the teaching time is often devoted to troubleshooting technical issues with the metaverse, and the medical content itself taking a backseat until students become proficient in navigating the metaverse environment. Therefore, it is essential to fit the metaverse's underlying technologies specifically for medical education, minimizing technical hurdles for both teachers and students. In this paper, we deal with this challenge and we present a collection of practical tips that serves as a guide for medical educators making decisions in this emerging field, where they may lack prior experience. Drawing on our observation with a cohort of 776 medical students, we conclude how to effectively identify, design, or implement educational applications tailored for efficient medical learning through the metaverse. Our work may support teachers considering metaverse learning platforms for their classrooms and it is a beneficial reference for the medical education community during the initial stages of implementing the metaverse for teaching.

Abstract The metaverse is known as the hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, connected, universal and immersive virtual world that can be accessed via immersive technology devices. One approach to this concept can be achieved through the use of multi-user immersive virtual reality applications. Immersive virtual reality (IVR), which uses gadgets that allow the user to visualize and interact in an enveloping way, is a very attractive technology for teaching purposes. There are many references in the scientific literature about its use for this purpose, including encouraging results in the field of medicine. However, there have not been enough studies assessing how much this type of technology really contributes to learning medicine. This work investigates the feasibility of using the metaverse as an educational tool in medicine. We propose a multi-user immersive virtual reality application for implementing a scene of the metaverse in which medical students are taught. Our work considers that in order to ensure this type of technology is useful in the education of medical students, the technology itself (multi-user IVR) must be designed and implemented for a medical student profile. They usually spend too much time for adapting themselves to use and manage this kind of technology when they are exposed to it for learning. The technology should not be a barrier to acquiring, or disseminating the academic contents themselves. It should act as a catalyst that enhances the speed and capacity for learning medical educational topics. Thus, we present design and user experience specifications that we implemented in an anatomical dissection room in the metaverse, and with which we conducted experiments with 114 sixth-grade medical students. Our results indicate that, based on the design and user experience characteristics that we propose in this paper, the metaverse can indeed serve as a useful and effective educational resource whose technological complexity is no barrier to medical teaching.