Nursing student Drew Owen knew something was wrong with his patient as soon as he walked into the hospital room. Earl Jenkins, a 60ish man, had been admitted for congestive heart failure. His wife, Thea, was at his bedside, looking very worried.
Jenkins' chest was rising and falling rapidly. "I'm struggling to breathe," he gasped.
Owen heard "crackles" in Jenkins' lungs and found low blood oxygenation, high blood pressure and an elevated heart rate - all signs, Owen knew, of pulmonary edema, a dangerous buildup of fluid.
Owen increased oxygen flow to the patient and helped Jenkins sit up in bed. A prescription for an intravenous diuretic came through, and Owen initiated the infusion right away.
Soon, Jenkins was breathing comfortably and his vital signs started to return to normal.
Owen took his own sigh of relief - and removed his virtual reality glasses to exit the room.
Owen, who will graduate in November from the Faculty of Nursing's after-degree program, helped run an immersive virtual reality (iVR) pilot project that ran from September 2025 to April 2026, putting 850 students through nearly a dozen virtual clinical scenarios covering everything from heart failure to overdose.
"It helps them with decision-making, clinical judgment, prioritization, communication skills and lots of other skills that they may not be able to get in a real-life clinical setting," says Tracey Stephen, executive director of the Nursing Simulation Centre, one of the largest of its kind in Canada.
"It is so immersive that it's nerve-wracking. I felt my own heart rate climbing," says Owen of his first experience with iVR experiential learning in the centre.
"But I was able to slow down and remind myself of what I've learned in my program and implement my critical thinking, so I could navigate through the scenario, identify what was happening and respond appropriately."
"On-your-feet clinical reasoning"
Since he started his nursing studies, Owen figures he's done nearly 800 hours of clinical placement time in hospitals and community clinics, learning skills from how to start an IV to how to look after post-surgical patients, always under the supervision of a fully qualified registered nurse.
Those placements provided an essential hands-on chance to apply what he learned in the classroom. Picking apart case studies with small groups of fellow students helped him cement that learning.
The virtual reality scenarios also challenged him in a different way.
"I wouldn't really be able to experience something like that pulmonary edema patient in a clinical placement because it would have been a safety risk to the patient," he points out. "And when you're looking at a patient in an iVR scenario and things are kind of unfolding before your eyes, you don't have the opportunity to ask your friends. So it really promotes that thinking-on-your feet clinical reasoning."
Stephen notes that simulated learning was first developed in the 1960s to train pilots and has been recommended by the Canadian Patient Safety Institute to be part of health sciences programs since 2006.
"We've gone from task trainers, which were just one part of a body, up to high-fidelity simulators that actually breathe, blink and respond to student interventions," she says. "And now we've introduced virtual reality."
Starting this spring, iVR is integrated into mental health nursing practice courses for U of A nursing students and will be expanded into more course areas in the fall.
"Having access to simulated learning experiences and experiential learning experiences helps students develop their confidence, helps them become proficient, effective and safe," says Stephen.
Owen is a Super Smash Bros. video game fan and knows his way around an Xbox. He says the iVR controls are similar, although he hasn't worn an iVR headset to play video games.
Owen plans to work in critical care or pediatrics after graduation and hopes one day to teach nursing himself. He figures iVR is here to stay as part of the nursing educational experience.
"It's just extremely valuable because nursing is such a practical, hands-on profession."
