The foundation of future medical educational tools may have just been developed at 麻豆原创 thanks to an interdisciplinary collaboration for student research projects.
As part of the Fall 2025 Senior Design Showcase, two research projects featured 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 麻豆原创 undergraduates.
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鈥檚 not a medical student and the heart she鈥檚 studying isn鈥檛 real thanks to new technology she helped develop.
Vorajee is a senior 麻豆原创 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鈥檚 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鈥檙e 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.
鈥淐omputers and VR headsets are a lot more easily available than an actual heart,鈥� she says. 鈥淚f a student wanted to study up, they鈥檒l be able to do so a lot easier with this program than they will be able to find a heart.鈥�
The project included guidance and mentorship by Laura Brattain, associate professor of medicine, and Matthew Gerber 鈥�98 鈥�00MS 鈥�05PhD and Richard Leinecker, associate lecturers of computer science.
Clinical Imaging VR
Before pursuing a degree in computer science, Arianna Ramirez Oquendo attended nursing school and used her experience to inform her group鈥檚 research project: a VR application to help medical students practice interpreting CT scans.
鈥淲hen 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,鈥� Oquendo recalls. 鈥淚 needed more than two or three hours a week to really understand what I’m looking at.鈥�
Oquendo鈥檚 group鈥檚 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 鈥� or images 鈥� from each CT scan. After the tutorial and CT scan room, there is a final study room where teachers can implement multiple choice or 鈥渄rag and drop鈥� 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.
鈥淏y aligning the CT images to a 3D model of the patient鈥檚 skeleton and organs, the students have a visual reference as they scroll through the various views and isolate the key findings,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his 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.鈥�
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