When Aderonke Aderbigbe first put on the virtual headset in the University of Alberta Faculty of Nursing simulation lab, she didn’t expect it to feel so real.
“It was really eye-opening,” the nursing student said. “I had a ‘this is the future’ kind of feeling.”
Aderbigbe is one of nearly 900 University of Alberta Faculty of Nursing students who has taken part in the virtual reality pilot project, which gives students the chance to play out different scenarios online.
“It gives me the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from it without actually doing damage to an actual patient,” she said.
When students step in to the virtual hospital room, they not only are able to take part in scenarios they may not see during their clinical hours, like caring for a patient with mpox or helping a mother through labour. It also allows them to be in charge during high-stress situations.
“I think it’s a stepping stone that helps students take that small step towards real-life practice, with a bit more confidence,” Drew Owen, nursing student, said.
“We have scenarios where things kind of go sideways with patients really quick. Usually in real life, a nursing student wouldn’t be handling that. ”
“This gives people the chance to practice that on their own and give their best swing at it, without any of the real-world consequences that could come with it,” he added. “You forget that you’re in this space and you really feel like you’re there in the hospital. ”
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Owen, who will graduate in November from the Faculty of Nursing’s after-degree program, helped run the immersive virtual reality (iVR) pilot project that ran from September 2025 to April 2026, putting students through nearly a dozen virtual clinical scenarios.
“When they’re just in their lectures and writing tests, you know what the right answer is by studying. But when you’re actually in that scenario, your fight or flight kicks in and you forget,” said Abigail Shuman, a recent grad from the program, and a part of the group that made the program a reality.
“When I was facilitating, it really helped me build my own confidence and my own knowledge and then I can carry that forward into my job.”
Dr. Tracey Stephen is the executive director of the Nursing Simulation Centre. She told Global News that simulated learning was first developed in the 1960s. Since then, nursing programs have used everything from a simulated arm to place IVs to high-tech mannequins that breath, blink and can respond to what students are doing.
Virtual reality is an add-on to the training that already exists.
“Virtual reality really focuses on critical thinking, clinical decision making, clinical judgment, so that students can make decisions and prioritize the best things for the patient,” she said. ” It doesn’t require huge amounts of space, doesn’t require a huge amount of equipment, so it’s easier to access.
“As soon as you get into the experience, you forget actually that you are basically in an empty room. You’re in an environment, you’re working with a patient, patient visitors, and all these different things are going on, and you have to think in real time, and you need to respond in real time.”
Students also don’t need to be in the same room to take part in the same simulation.
“The positive feedback from students has been overwhelming,” she said.
The pilot project will be expanded to include more rooms and equipment for the next group of nursing students that start in the fall of 2026, doubling its current size.
While it’s technically still a pilot project, the hope is to make VR a regular feature of the nursing program moving forward.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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