Applications of Haptic Technology, Virtual Reality, and Artificial Intelligence in Medical Training During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mohammad Motaharifar; Alireza Norouzzadeh; Parisa Abdi; Arash Iranfar; Faraz Lotfi; Behzad Moshiri; Alireza Lashay; Seyed Farzad Mohammadi; Hamid D Taghirad

doi:10.3389/frobt.2021.612949

Applications of Haptic Technology, Virtual Reality, and Artificial Intelligence in Medical Training During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Front Robot AI. 2021 Aug 12:8:612949. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2021.612949. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Advanced Robotics and Automated Systems (ARAS), Industrial Control Center of Excellence, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
² Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran.
³ Translational Ophthalmology Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁴ School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
⁵ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada.

Abstract

This paper examines how haptic technology, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence help to reduce the physical contact in medical training during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Notably, any mistake made by the trainees during the education process might lead to undesired complications for the patient. Therefore, training of the medical skills to the trainees have always been a challenging issue for the expert surgeons, and this is even more challenging in pandemics. The current method of surgery training needs the novice surgeons to attend some courses, watch some procedure, and conduct their initial operations under the direct supervision of an expert surgeon. Owing to the requirement of physical contact in this method of medical training, the involved people including the novice and expert surgeons confront a potential risk of infection to the virus. This survey paper reviews recent technological breakthroughs along with new areas in which assistive technologies might provide a viable solution to reduce the physical contact in the medical institutes during the COVID-19 pandemic and similar crises.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; artificial intelligence; haptic; medical training; virtual reality.