Student Research Expands Medical Education in Virtual Reality Spaces

The foundation of future medical educational tools may have just been developed at UCF thanks to an interdisciplinary collaboration for student research projects.

As part of the UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science Fall 2025 Senior Design Showcase, two research projects featured UCF College of Medicine faculty mentorship that resulted in new ways for students and medical professionals to collaborate in health sciences and medical education.

Judges selected the two projects to be featured in the yearly showcase because of their quality and potential for real-world application.

The students received invaluable experience and the technologies developed are ready to be further refined by another incoming group of UCF undergraduates.

Seniors Brayden Weber, Nabeeha Vorajee, Jose Hernandez, Francisco Picazo, Anthony Castillo and Julian Mendez worked on a heart imaging project as developers. (Photo by Eddy Duryea)

Understanding Congenital Heart Defects Through Immersive Technology

If Nabeeha Vorajee were was in a clinical setting, she would need a mask, scalpel and medical scrubs to explore the anatomy of the heart. But she's not a medical student and the heart she's studying isn't real thanks to new technology she helped develop.

Vorajee is a senior UCF computer science major, and the heart is made of thousands of pixels residing in a simulated classroom accessible through virtual reality (VR).

Students wear a virtual reality headset to better understand CT scans of the heart. Using AI, the system categorizes the images for common heart defects. It also creates a 3D digital twin of the heart that students can interact with through the headset.

Vorajee's team took the learning system a step further and applied it for medical education. They integrated AI learning and the ability to highlight, isolate and segment different parts of the heart. If users have questions about what they're seeing, they can ask the AI data set without leaving the session.

Users can import cardiac CT scans and transform them into a 3D heart, which allows them to take the model and learn beyond the classroom, Vorajee says.

"Computers and VR headsets are a lot more easily available than an actual heart," she says. "If a student wanted to study up, they'll be able to do so a lot easier with this program than they will be able to find a heart."

The project included guidance and mentorship by Laura Brattain, associate professor of medicine, and Matthew Gerber '98 '00MS '05PhD and Richard Leinecker, associate lecturers of computer science.

Seniors Ash Hutchinson, Arianna Ramirez Oquendo, Michael Biskup, Matthew Eisenberg, Kyle Kratt, Zoe Schlesinger and Thomas Winslow worked on a CT scan/VR application project. (Photo by Eddy Duryea)

Clinical Imaging VR

Before pursuing a degree in computer science, Arianna Ramirez Oquendo attended nursing school and used her experience to inform her group's research project: a VR application to help medical students practice interpreting CT scans.

"When I was in nursing, I realized that most of my practice identifying organ structures and reading CT scans or MRIs was restricted to only lab times," Oquendo recalls. "I needed more than two or three hours a week to really understand what I'm looking at."

Oquendo's group's system simulates a clinical imaging office where students can compare normal and abnormal CT scans, identify anatomical structures and recognize medical implantable devices.

The app allows students to see and adjust up to 160 slices - or images - from each CT scan. After the tutorial and CT scan room, there is a final study room where teachers can implement multiple choice or "drag and drop" quizzes on specific scans.

Emily Bradshaw, an associate professor of medicine and project sponsor, says that this project has great potential to help students and supplement their education.

CT imaging can be a difficult radiologic discipline to master because the images are presented in three different planes, says Melissa Cowan, project sponsor and assistant director of instructional technology at the College of Medicine.

"By aligning the CT images to a 3D model of the patient's skeleton and organs, the students have a visual reference as they scroll through the various views and isolate the key findings," she says. "This app is another tool to help students learn how to read and interpret CT scans and apply their knowledge to other patient cases presented throughout the curriculum and in clinical settings."

A longer version of this story can be accessed on the UCF College of Medicine's website.

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