Japanese startup Jolly Good Inc., in collaboration with Juntendo University, will commence a demonstration project for the introduction of medical education with virtual reality (VR) for the purpose of developing medical human resources through the use of VR at Royal Mahidol University and throughout Thailand. This is the first time that Japanese medical VR has been officially introduced into an overseas university.

In this project, Jolly Good will provide Mahidol University with VR teaching material production facilities and VR experience equipment to create an environment that enables the self-production of VR teaching materials for infectious disease treatment education at the university.

The technology will be introduced in four departments: the Faculty of Tropical Medicine at Mahidol University, the School of Nursing and the Faculty of Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital, and the Educational Simulation Center at Chakri Naruebodindra Medical Institute. The VR educational materials will be used in demonstration classes at Mahidol University to verify their effectiveness, after which they will be used to conduct medical education using VR at regional hospitals in Thailand.

In the first year, the medical VR programme will be completed at Mahidol University. In subsequent years, the project will aim to enhance their knowledge and experience at an early stage and improve the quality of medical care including dealing with health crises in community medicine, thereby providing education using VR to the medical students, residents, and physicians involved in community medicine along the Thai border.