Cardiac auscultation is a routine medical examination whereby using a stethoscope placed over various regions of the patient's chest, a health care professional listens to the patient's hear murmurs to diagnose their heart condition. Cardiac auscultation training has evolved from relying on patient and audio recordings to employing simulation manikins, multimedia, mobile applications, and most recently digital simulations, including virtual reality (VR) that allows training without the limitations of physical laboratories. Typically, at a consumer-level VR headset orientation is used to identify areas of attention and trigger interactions, while high-end headsets make use of eye tracking. This paper presents a work in progress comparison between headset orientation and eye tracking employing two different VR controllers to understand focus on items on screen. Preliminary results indicate that participants spent a significant amount of time browsing the scene rather than relevant objects for the examination. With respect to the tracking methods, eye tracking was the most reliable, thus highlighting the need for thoughtful headset tracking. Future work will focus on a larger study to develop a tool to enhance VR headset interactions by understating how they compare to gaze captured data for more effective interactions and navigation in VR for successful training.

Central venous access is an invasive medical procedure of high complexity used in critically ill patients. Its implementation requires great skills and knowledge from a health care specialist. Advances in patient simulators present solutions regarding children and adults, however, newborn simulators are scarce. This paper presents the development of a newborn's central venous access simulator for training and educational purposes. The simulation system is composed of three main subsystems: a procedural simulation, showing how the procedure must be correctly performed; a haptic subsystem for increasing realism; and finally a newborn manikin with image projection for guiding the procedure.