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How VR training prepares surgeons to save infants’ lives

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

Virtual reality promises to be great for gamers, but it also has potential to change the world in other ways. Shauna Heller recognized that potential, so she quit her job at Oculus VR and became a consultant — working to bring non-VR applications to life. One of the projects she took on was to create a VR simulation that teaches doctors how to treat infants in emergencies.

Heller pulled together a team of developers and technologists and matched them with surgeons at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles (CHLA). Together, they made a VR simulation that helps doctors in training save infants who have suffered some kind of seizure or are in anaphylactic shock.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.