Imagine your classroom is completely transformed into a dental clinic in the blink of an eye. You walk in through the doors and you have a patient sitting on your chair waiting for you to perform a root canal procedure. You pick up your tools and begin to drill. You are suddenly transported and shrunk down to the size of the tooth, you walk through these tiny chambers and spot all the cavities. No, this isn’t a Disneyland ride, but a virtual reality class at the School of Dentistry at University of Utah Health.
Mark Durham, DMD, has been one of the pioneers of noogenesis technology at the University of Utah, which is the evolution of intelligence through the use of technology. He has helped introduce new and innovative teaching at the School of Dentistry and collaborates with 15 different disciplines across campus incorporating virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). VR digitally recreates a real-life setting, while AR shows virtual elements of the digital world. Durham is currently working with a team of engineers and researchers to program courses at the Marriott Library and Eccles Health Sciences Library, from architecture and biosciences, to surgery and dental lesions.
“With VR, you can push more megabytes of information to the human brain. In the line of evolution, noogenesis is essentially making humans better humans,” says Durham.