'Not Just Entertainment—a Proven Teaching Tool': How Immersive Tech Is Changing Public Health Education

A few years before virtual reality became a cornerstone of George Mason’s approach to public health training, Bethany Cieslowski already saw its power to improve training for all students, but she wanted evidence to prove it.

Cieslowski, chief innovation officer and associate professor, conducted a pilot study comparing the outcomes from students trained either in a hospital or entirely in VR in lifelike, immersive simulations.

The outcome? The VR-trained students performed better. Not only did they outperform their peers overall, but they showed sharper skills in infection control, initial assessment, and oxygen therapy specifically.

“It helped shift the conversation,” said Cieslowski, who is one of four Certified Healthcare Simulation Educators at the college. “People stopped thinking of VR as just entertainment, and started seeing its power as a proven teaching tool.” 

That philosophy drives the Lab for Immersive Technologies and Simulation, an 8,000-square-foot hub on the Fairfax campus where students don Quest headsets and step into scenarios based on real public health challenges. 

One exercise has social work students defusing a mental crisis. Another asks health administration students to handle the managerial fallout of a fictional nursing mistake. Others involve situations like infectious diseases, respiratory distress, emergency preparedness, anaphylaxis, opioid misuse, and conflict resolution in school clinics. For each scenario, trained facilitators conduct a pre-briefing to prepare participants for the simulation and its technology, followed by a debriefing to reflect on the experience, discuss best practices, and highlight key takeaways.

Reaching every public health student 

So far, nearly 1,000 students have trained in the center, with a goal to reach every George Mason public health student in the coming years. 

While many university simulation centers are geared toward clinical training, the Lab for Immersive Technologies and Simulation was designed from the start for all public health disciplines. George Mason’s is the first public health college in the world to earn accreditation from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare—a distinction held by fewer than 300 different organizations worldwide. 

Intentionally designed as a low-risk learning environment, the lab encourages experimentation, self-correction, and second tries.“As with any good classroom, immersive tech lets students make mistakes, learn from them, and try again,” Cieslowski said. “This is one of the lab’s greatest assets.” 

To ensure the benefits of VR reach beyond their own classrooms, George Mason faculty are also conducting research to reinforce the evidence base on the technology’s impacts. “We’re studying how this training affects students not only during their learning process, but also how it carries over long term into their work in public health,” Cieslowski said. 

Social Work Professor Holly Matto saw the impact firsthand while leading students through a VR simulation involving working with a teen in foster care having a violent outburst. Her follow-up work, published in Social Work Education, found the scenario and debrief gave students confidence to handle volatile situations that demand empathy and de-escalation.

“VR gives students a unique chance to make decisions as a team, get instant feedback, and try various different approaches,” Matto said—echoing the findings in Cieslowski’s early research. 

Seeing is believing 

Though ongoing research continues to validate VR’s promise, firsthand experience makes the case most convincingly. 

Dean Melissa Perry is now a champion of immersive tech training in public health education, but even she was initially skeptical of VR. “How could a fancy gaming gizmo be better than hands-on practice?” she wondered. That changed when Perry put on a headset. “I realized every student in this college should have an opportunity to experience this.”  

In the lab, future nurses, health administrators, nutritionists, and social workers can rehearse the decisions and pressures they’ll one day face on the job.

“Virtual reality is poised to revolutionize public health education. Students will be able to put on headsets and step into communities around the world—exploring the social determinants of health in Nairobi’s urban settings, modeling disease outbreaks across America, and preparing for emergency response in high flood risk areas," said Rima Nakkash, interim chair of the Department of Global and Community Health. "These immersive experiences will improve community readiness, cultivate empathy, deepen understanding, and shape the next generation of global health leaders."

These are textured, realistic scenarios that no textbook can fully capture.  

“The things that the clients say, the situation they're experiencing, and the setting, are all something that a social worker could expect to see in the field,” Maeve Berman, MSW '25, said of her immersive tech experience. “It was really great to experience a different population and a different setting than I had previously worked with.”

Local health systems and crisis teams are taking note, recognizing immersive training as a tool that can help close workforce gaps and meet real-world demands. 

“The experience and confidence students gain will help them respond to complex situations they’ll face in the field and ultimately will improve patient outcomes,” said Heather Causseaux, BSN ’05, MSN ’10, vice president of operations at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center. “These innovative tools are transforming health care.”

Constantly evolving 

As VR use expands in public health, educators are still actively grappling with its limitations. Some immersive scenarios may lack cultural nuance, or fail to reflect communities where students will work. To help close that gap, the college is designing custom simulations with faculty across disciplines, incorporating feedback from students and partners in the field.

The lab has addressed common VR challenges—like "cybersickness” and physical collisions—by upgrading to Quest 3 headsets and creating a spacious setup that allows students to move safely.

“We learn alongside our students,” said Cieslowski. “If something doesn’t work, we want to know—and fix it.” Keeping pace with evolving tech is an on-going investment, but with the support of current and future donors and strategic investment from the college, the lab can stay nimble and cutting edge.

As the college builds its library of VR scenarios, the next leap is already underway: bringing in AI-powered platforms that generate scenarios on the fly and interact with students in real time. “This is the future of VR," said Cieslowski. “It’s going to change our trajectory.”