Virtual reality that puts people inside the moment

A hard conversation or a high-pressure procedure can be described, or your people can rehearse it, standing inside a scenario that answers what they do.

The moment

Two clinicians in a corridor, and a sentence one of them has to say

A junior doctor has to tell a senior colleague that the handover missed something, in a corridor, with a patient’s family in earshot. She has read the escalation policy. She has never said the sentence out loud. In the headset the colleague turns, answers what she says, and the corridor stays a corridor.

Two clinical staff face each other in a corridor, one wearing a headset. — Your clinical staff rehearse the corridor conversation with a colleague who answers back.

A man wearing a headset stands in a workplace corridor while two simulated colleagues walk away from him without turning round. — Your staff stand in the place of the colleague everyone walks past, and remember it.

A crew member wearing a headset points at a piece of plant equipment picked out by a soft blue outline, on a walkway beside pipework. — Your crews point out the marked hazard before the shift, as many times as it takes.

How PTR builds it

Role-play, perspective and procedure, from inside the headset

Role-play and rehearsal is practice of conversations that are difficult to stage any other way. Perspective experiences step a learner into another person’s position to build understanding that sticks. Procedural simulation lets someone practise a sequence, a decision or a high-pressure environment safely and repeatedly. All three follow one pattern: a safe environment, real pressure, the learner’s own choice, then reflect and repeat.

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. — Your nurses slow down as the hands arrive, from the patient’s own side of the bed.

Two hands hover over the console, a first-person moment from one of PTR's perspective-taking VR training scenarios. — Your operators hover over the console and make the call with nothing at stake.

Two hands rest on the wheel, a first-person moment from one of PTR's procedural simulation training scenarios. — Your drivers adjust their grip on a wet road at dusk, before the real one.

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Where it is used

Where the work has settled, and what was measured

PTR’s VR work spans healthcare and medical training, education and workforce development, aged care and disability services, creative arts and galleries, government and defence leadership, and corporate and executive leadership. The projects include three published examples of those patterns, and a fourth backed by two peer-reviewed studies.

An observer and a participant share a perspective-taking room, the participant wearing the headset. — Your observer and your participant share the perspective-taking room, then talk it through.

1,149

Eligible nurse and social worker leaders across Mayo Clinic offered a VR empathy and bias-recognition training, evaluated in two peer-reviewed papers. Read the research

96%

Of Mater Education staff said they wanted more VR-based learning after piloting a VR feedback-conversation simulation, per Mater's own program evaluation.

82%

Of QA testers rated the facilitated post-VR group discussion useful or very useful, in Google's peer-reviewed CHI 2024 VR DEI case study (9 of 11 respondents).

Featured work

Mater Education, Google and Cornell University

Mater Education brought its Speaking with Good Judgement program into a branched VR simulation of real hospital environments. PTR co-designed four VR scenarios with Google’s DEI team, each seen from two points of view and followed by a live, facilitated group debrief. Everyday Inclusion, co-designed with Cornell University and Angela Winfield, has led PTR’s inclusion library since 2018 and has been reused for Etihad Airways and Metro Trains workshops.

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.

Mater Education. Your clinicians rehearse the feedback conversation at a bedside in a simulation of their own hospital.

Two people in business attire hold a conversation inside a virtual office.

PTR and Google. Your staff live the same workplace situation from two points of view, then debrief it with a facilitator.

A man wearing a headset stands in a hospital staff room, a colleague with a lanyard in the foreground, a clock and microwave behind him. A VR scenario set in a hospital.

Cornell University. Your teams take the Everyday Inclusion module that airlines and rail operators have run since.

What the learner does

Practice you do standing up

Virtual reality replaces what a person sees and hears, so the floor underfoot belongs to the training room while everything within reach belongs to the scenario. Turning to face someone, stepping back, reaching for the thing on the table: those are part of the rehearsal. Psychological safety is built into the scenario before anyone puts on a headset, because a person standing in the moment cannot look away from it.

A man wearing a VR headset stands on a lit floor grid in a dark studio, both arms raised toward glowing panels around him. — Your staff stand in one room and reach into another, with the training room still underfoot.

Two participants rehearse a safety walkthrough. A VR training scenario for virtual reality training and simulation. — Your participants rehearse the safety walkthrough in pairs before it is real.

Two people rehearse a standing workplace conversation. — Your staff rehearse the standing workplace conversation, stepping back when they need to.

Where VR needs care

What the published work warns about

Google’s CHI 2024 authors identify headset discomfort and fit with glasses, the cost of scaling headsets and facilitators, limited visual fidelity and participants wanting more agency, and name novelty as a possible contributor to the positive response. Mayo Clinic’s trial reports significant, durable gains in empathy and willingness to act, from a mostly white, female sample in one health system with no comparison group at the 6 to 8 month follow-up. New to VR? Start with What is Virtual Reality? or the PTR Labs demos.

A wheelchair user and colleague rehearse a conversation. A VR training scenario for virtual reality training and simulation. — Your staff who use a wheelchair rehearse seated, with the scenario built for where they are.

Two participants swap positions during a staged roleplay. — Your participants swap positions mid-scenario and feel the other side of the conversation.

Two people practise a service conversation. A VR training scenario for virtual reality training and simulation. — Your service staff practise the recovery conversation, paired with a facilitated debrief.

"Virtual Reality offers a unique and powerful training tool that can immerse individuals in realistic, high-pressure environments without the associated risks."

Simon Lowe, CEO of People Tech Revolution, mid-sentence at a lectern. Simon Lowe
CEO, People Tech Revolution. Let’s be prepared, Global Best Practice Group, August 2024

The library

Ready-to-run titles, built on the same patterns

Much of this work now sits in the PTR VR Library as ready-to-run titles, built on the same role-play, perspective and procedural patterns: a branching choice, a viewpoint swap, a procedure sequence, and a group debrief at the end of each.

A learner selects a VR role-play object. A VR training scenario for virtual reality training and simulation. — Your learners choose the branch and live with where it leads.

Two people swap perspectives inside a scenario. — Your learners swap viewpoints and see the same room from the other chair.

A participant rehearses a procedure. A VR training scenario for virtual reality training and simulation. — Your staff rehearse the procedure sequence until the order is theirs.

Panoramic capture

Panoramic capture and review

Where a rebuilt room is more than the job needs, a panoramic capture of the real one does the work: the warehouse aisle, the gallery, the rooftop. 360 experiences covers how a capture becomes a scene a browser or a headset can stand in.