IntroductionHearing impairment is a common condition that can have a significant impact on an individual. Ineffective communication between such individuals and doctors remains an important barrier. There is a need to provide medical students with a deeper understanding of such challenges. Increasingly, simulation is being used to develop empathy skills. In this study, we aimed to seek a deep understanding of medical students’ experiences of being placed in the role of a hearing-impaired patient by means of a virtual reality (VR) simulation.MethodsA multidisciplinary group developed a 360° VR video-learning experience. This experience portrayed a consultation with a doctor from a hearing-impaired individual’s perspective. A qualitative study approach, using hermeneutic phenomenology, was conducted. Following the VR experience, students were interviewed, and transcripts of interviews were analysed using a Template Analysis approach.ResultsAnalysis yielded four main themes: (1) ‘much more than just watching a video’: a VR experience of hearing impairment; (2) ‘hearing through their ears’: experiencing a person’s world with hearing impairment; (3) ‘not just what you can’t hear…but how it makes you feel’: reactions evoked by a VR hearing impairment experience and (4) redirecting my future professional self?DiscussionThis study provides an insight into medical students’ experiences of a novel VR hearing impairment simulation. VR simulation has the potential to provide a novel complementary training method for medical students. By providing an immersive learning experience, VR can offer an empathic stepping into the ears of those that live with hearing impairment.

While it is reasonable to assume that most healthcare students have an empathic disposition, evidence suggests that empathy levels often decline during the period of enrolment in an undergraduate health degree. Despite the need for more attention to the development of empathy as an employability skill, many healthcare programs only pay lip service to this concept. Against this backdrop we developed a Virtual Empathy Museum (VEM): an innovative digital resource funded by an Australian Technology Network of Universities grant. The VEM includes evidenced-based simulations, digital stories, and a range of other educational materials, designed to enhance healthcare students and practitioners' empathy skills and enable them to make a positive impact on patient care. This presentation will introduce the VEM with the aim of starting a conversation (or perhaps even a 'movement') that leads to empathy being included as an integral component of every healthcare curriculum. The relationship between empathy and patient outcomes will be explored; and the results of a systemic review that examined the effectiveness of immersive and experiential simulation-based interventions in empathy education will be presented. 2

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