There is increasing demand for high-quality anatomy teaching for medical undergraduates. This study investigates medical students’ perspectives on using virtual reality to learn laryngeal anatomy.

Thirty-six Year 4 university teaching hospital medical students participated in a virtual reality laryngeal anatomy learning experience (Oculus Quest 2® headsets). Students interacted with a VR model and completed a confidential feedback survey assessing their virtual reality exposure, learning environment, perceived usefulness and willingness to use virtual reality in future training.

A total of 75 per cent of students had minimal prior virtual reality exposure. Despite this, 69.5 per cent agreed that virtual reality helped them learn the anatomy better than traditional lectures; 76.1 per cent believed virtual reality enhanced their learning; and 80 per cent expressed willingness to use virtual reality in their training. High satisfaction was reported regarding the learning environment, with 97.2 per cent feeling comfortable and engaged.

Virtual reality is a useful adjunct to laryngeal anatomy education, providing an interactive, engaging and resource-efficient adjunct to traditional methods.

The surgical trainee has to acquire surgical skills in an era of reduced training hours and greater demands for efficient use of operating theatre time. Many surgical specialties are utilising model and simulation-based training to provide safe, low-pressure training opportunities for today's trainee.

This paper describes a simple, relatively inexpensive tonsillectomy model that enables the practice of tonsil removal and ligation of bleeding vessels. The model is beneficial for the patient, trainee and trainer.

The pseudo mouth and active bleeding components of this model provide the trainee with a relatively inexpensive, realistic model with which to gain confidence and competence in the skill of ligating tonsillar blood vessels with a tonsil tie.