At many Japanese institutions offering medical education, students are unable to attend clinical practice due to the spread of COVID-19, denying them the experience of valuable opportunities to learn.

Efforts by Jolly Good and Nippon Medical School to develop the OPEcloud virtual reality (VR) clinical education platform were recently featured on NHK WORLD-JAPAN. This feature is available to the public online.

With VR cameras and servers installed at medical facilities, OPEcloud VR turns all kinds of medical cases into VR content, enabling not only clinical training from a doctor's or nurse's perspective, but also offering a truly immersive experience, as though the entire medical team is present.

According to a survey conducted by the Japan Association for Medical Students Societies (Igakuren), when students were asked about experiences missed in ward training, the most commonly cited response at 60.9% was "Examination of patients," followed by "Patient rounds," "Clinical practice outside the university hospital," and "Observing outpatients." Also, in the field of nursing student education, 706 (96.6%) of 731 nursing training schools experienced lack of availability for clinical training intake.