Mayo Clinic: A Day In a Lifetime

A VR series for nurse and social worker leaders at Mayo Clinic, and two peer-reviewed papers on what it changed.

Facing his reflection in a hospital room.

Built with Mayo nurses, from their own days

A Day In a Lifetime is a series of short VR experiences People Tech Revolution built for Mayo Clinic nurse and social worker leaders, co-designed with the Mayo Clinic team and drawn from the lived experience of Mayo nurses.

Two peer-reviewed papers by Mayo Clinic authors document the rollout and its measured effect on empathy and upstander behaviour.

What Mayo wanted its leaders to be able to do

Recognise bias, racism and microaggressions when they happen on the frontline, respond in the moment, and model inclusive behaviour for the team, rather than treat the subject as a one-off lecture.

A nurse leader wearing a headset stands in a ward corridor facing two simulated colleagues, one of whom has looked away, deciding whether to say something. — A nurse leader decides whether to speak up.

Speaking up is a skill, not a slide

A lecture can name a microaggression. It cannot put you in the breakroom when one lands on a colleague, with the rest of the team watching to see what you do.

Mayo wanted its leaders to feel that moment first, and then to practise the response.

"It's not just about seeing a different perspective - it's about feeling it. That's where real change begins."

Simon Lowe, PTR's CEO, mid-sentence at a lectern. Simon Lowe
CEO, People Tech Revolution. Forbes, 13 June 2025

What PTR built

Short scenarios set in a staff breakroom and a patient room, co-designed with Mayo nurses who had lived experience of workplace racism and microaggressions, many of whom identify as Black, Indigenous or people of colour.

A man wearing a headset sits at a table with a mug, a woman across from him with her own, in a plain staff room with a window behind them. — Two colleagues at a table in the breakroom.

A clinician wearing a headset stands at a hospital bedside facing a simulated patient propped up on pillows, practising the bedside conversation in a ward that looks like the ward. — A bedside conversation in a patient room.

A patient speaks in his own time.

Embody it, then rehearse it

Each scenario has two halves. First the participant experiences the bias first-hand, embodying a Black nurse. Then they re-enter the same scene as themselves and practise speaking up. The discussion stays out of the app: a live, facilitated group debrief, by design.

Two hands raised in front of the viewer inside a simulated room, a first-person view from a headset. — The scene through your own hands.

A woman wearing a headset stands face to face with her mirrored reflection in a simulated hospital room, both with their hands raised mid-conversation. — Back in the scene as yourself.

A support worker talks with a young man. A first person VR training scenario for healthcare, seen through the headset. — Choosing a response, seated across from someone.

How it was offered to 1,149 leaders

Three major Mayo Clinic campuses and four US regions, with 1,131 of the 1,149 attending. Delivery combined 100 VR headsets with 28 two-hour virtual class sessions over four months.

A clinical scenario for practising conversation. — A facilitator checks in mid-session.

Headsets in the room, debrief in the group

Each class paired the VR scenarios with a small-group debrief led by trained facilitators.

The headset is where the moment lands. The debrief is where it turns into something a leader will do differently on the next shift.

What Mayo measured

Mayo Clinic evaluated the program twice: an education survey answered by 593 of the 1,131 attendees (52.4%), and a separate randomised program evaluation reported in the same JONA paper.

Two hands reach gently toward a patient's forearm resting on a blanket, a first-person moment from one of PTR's role-play and rehearsal scenarios. — Two hands reach toward a forearm.

91.9%

agreed or strongly agreed the learning objectives were achieved

90.3%

agreed the small-group debrief was effective

86.2%

felt the VR simulation was valuable to their professional growth

89.2%

would take part again

The first two figures are from the education survey of 593 respondents; the last two from the randomised program evaluation.Nelson et al., The Journal of Nursing Administration, 2024

A simulated ward bay at three in the morning, a low light over the bed. A woman lies awake; a night nurse in the headset crouches to her level. — A nurse crouches to a patient's level.

Real enough, and not always comfortable

93.4% said the scenario felt like real life. 61.1% rated the overall activity very good or excellent, and the authors point to technical issues, discomfort with the content and the class's mandatory nature as possible reasons.

A companion controlled study in Social Science & Medicine found statistically significant gains in empathy and in willingness to act as an upstander against a control group, with most of those gains still present six to eight months later.

The rooms where it happens

Bias rarely arrives in a meeting. It arrives at a bedside, in a consult with a family, in a corridor, and the leader in the room has seconds to respond. These are the rooms PTR builds for that moment.

A simulated GP consulting room. A woman in her sixties sits with an interpreter beside her, a doctor in the headset speaking to the patient, not the interpreter. — Speaking to the patient, not to the interpreter.

Relative gestures beside a facilitator. A first person VR training scenario for healthcare, seen through the headset. — A relative gestures beside a facilitator.

A midwife leans toward a new mother. A VR training scenario for healthcare. — A midwife leans toward a new mother.

What a director of the program said

Quoted in Forbes, June 2025.

"We saw measurable improvements in confidence, communication, and inclusive leadership behaviors across diverse care settings."

Dr Alec J. Williams, DNP, CNP
A director of the program, Mayo Clinic. Quoted in Forbes, 13 June 2025

Want a program like this for your own nursing leaders?

Open the contact form

Sources

Each figure above, with its authors and the site that published it.

Two nurses in headsets facing each other in a hospital ward, ready for a difficult conversation.

Promoting Nursing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Through Virtual Reality Learning

The Journal of Nursing Administration, 2024

Nelson, D. E., Burkhartzmeyer, H. L., Kiker, K. M., Simiele, K. C., Proulx, A. L., Arcand, L. L., Alcock, L. R., Frederick, R. K., Phelan, S., and Storsveen, A. S.

People Tech Revolution built the modules through Equal Reality, a subsidiary of People Tech Revolution, which the paper names as the external VR developer.

A first-person moment reaching toward a patient's forearm, from a PTR rehearsal scenario.

A virtual reality intervention to increase interracial empathy and upstander behaviors in nursing leaders

Social Science & Medicine, 2025

Phelan, S. M., Burkhartzmeyer, H. L., Standen, E. C., Arcand, L. L., Kiker, K. M., Simiele, K. C., Proulx, A. L., Storsveen, A. S., Deng, Y., Foote, J. M., Kumbamu, A., Prakaashana, A. N., and Nelson, D. E.