How real is too real? SimCast explores BlueRoom with MKC Training
We’re pleased to see BlueRoom featured in a recent episode of SimCast, the higher education simulation podcast, exploring a question that matters to anyone designing immersive training: how real should simulation feel?
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
In episode 82, hosts Tony Jermy and Lawrence Hill visit MKC Training at the Historic Dockyard Chatham. They join Defence Medical Lead Keith Mills to experience BlueRoom and discuss the role of mixed reality in clinical and operational training.
The conversation explores how learners can work with real equipment, patients and manikins while immersed in a simulated environment. It also considers how biometric monitoring, eye tracking and performance data could help educators better understand decision-making, attention and stress.
For us, these are valuable questions to bring into the wider simulation community. Creating a convincing environment is one part of the work. The purpose of that environment, the skills being practised and the support learners receive all deserve equal attention.
One particularly thoughtful part of the episode is the discussion of psychological safety and debriefing. The team considers how a powerful immersive experience can affect a learner’s readiness to reflect, and why good simulation design and facilitation remain essential.
We welcome that educational perspective. As mixed reality becomes part of more training programmes, open conversations between educators, clinicians, researchers and technology developers help keep the focus on learners and their needs.
Thank you to Tony, Lawrence, Keith and the MKC Training team for bringing BlueRoom into the discussion and sharing their experience with the SimCast audience.
If you work in healthcare education, defence, emergency services or simulation, we invite you to watch the conversation and consider where mixed reality might fit within your own training programme.
