Expanding the Clinical Exam Room: How WVSOM Is Rethinking Experiential Learning with AI and XR
In a small town in West Virginia, the clinical exam room is getting bigger.
Not physically, of course, but conceptually, educationally. At the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM), faculty and students are reimagining what experiential learning can look like when geography, demographics, and time are no longer the limiting factors. And they are doing it with the help of AI and extended reality (XR).
At the center of this shift is Lumeto’s InvolveXR platform, a tool that lets learners step into immersive, AI-powered clinical scenarios that feel less like simulations and more like lived experiences. For WVSOM, InvolveXR isn’t just another technology. It’s a gateway to scale, customization, and something equally critical, exposure to a broader, more realistic spectrum of patient care.
Designing the Experience, End to End
InvolveXR’s authoring flexibility has opened new creative doors for faculty. Educators aren’t just selecting cases from a library, they are designing experiences from the ground up.
With InvolveXR, that bottleneck disappeared.
“We’re able to actually create our own scenarios,” Amick adds. “And we can usually have them ready within less than a week to run with students.”
The difference is subtle but transformative. Control moved from vendor to educator. Authoring became part of the workflow, not an external process. Simulation could now move at the speed of learning.
From Constraint to Possibility
Simulation-based education has always played a critical role in medical training. But even the best programs face limitations. Standardized patients are constrained by availability and local demographics. High-fidelity simulations require time, space, and resources. Developing new cases often meant waiting weeks or months for vendor-side programming.
“At times, we need cases on shorter notice,” explains Angie Amick, LPN, CHSOS, Manikin/VR Simulation Program Coordinator at WVSOM. “With our previous platform, if we wanted to develop a case, we had to send it out and wait for it to be programmed before it could be used.”
This level of customization matters in medical education, where context is everything. Labs, images, and scenarios are more than data, they are stories. And now WVSOM faculty can craft those stories to perfectly align with learning objectives.
Meeting Patients You Might Never Otherwise Meet
For students like Samuel Fuller, Clinical Sciences Graduate Teaching Assistant, InvolveXR has expanded the patient population far beyond what geography alone can provide.
“The amount of diversity that I’m able to see with patients is quite different than what I would see outside of this type of system,” Fuller reflects. “Whether it is standardized patients or other simulations I’ve done in the past, I’ve never really gotten to interview a child, or interview someone of a different race or ethnicity, just because of the demographics where I live.”
That limitation is not unique to West Virginia. Many medical schools, especially those in rural areas, struggle to expose learners to the full spectrum of patient backgrounds they will encounter in practice. InvolveXR helps close that gap.
“Being able to kind of step my foot in that door has been really helpful,” Fuller adds. “It’s really opening, the different possibilities and potential.”
Learning the Conversations That Matter
One of the most impactful examples has been pediatric care. Through InvolveXR, students can practice scenarios that require them to communicate not just with a patient, but with caregivers as well.
For Stephanie Puckett, Clinical Sciences Graduate Teaching Assistant, these experiences have been eye-opening.
“We were able to do some pediatric cases which gave us a really clear idea of, ‘Okay, when I am on my pediatric rotation, not only do I have to communicate with the child presenting with the problem, but also the caregiver or parent,’” Puckett says.
That layered communication, child, parent, clinician, is complex. It requires empathy, clarity, and adaptability. Before InvolveXR, it was difficult to teach consistently. Now, it’s repeatable, scalable, and safe to practice.
Technology That Feels Human
Despite the advanced technology under the hood, AI-driven characters and XR environments, the human connection stands out most to faculty.
That relationship matters. Educational innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. It requires collaboration, trust, and responsiveness.
“I feel like my success is Lumeto’s success,” Dr. Thomas adds. “It’s something I actually look forward to every day in my job. It’s the most fun part of my job.”
Scaling What Matters Most
At its core, WVSOM’s work with InvolveXR isn’t about technology for technology’s sake. It’s about scaling what matters most:
- Scaling access to experiential learning
- Scaling exposure to diverse patient populations
- Scaling the ability for educators to respond quickly and creatively to learner needs
By blending AI, XR, and educator-driven design, WVSOM is expanding the clinical exam room in ways that matter, preparing students not just to pass exams, but to meet patients where they are.
And in doing so, they are quietly redefining what modern medical education can look like.