The year 2020, marked a rise in the number of medical animation studios and companies.
Since raising awareness about hygiene and social distancing was a major goal, we saw medical animation videos circling around the internet in great numbers.
And, since then, educators have found animated videos to be really useful for educational content. A good reason to do that is animations in course content make learning fun.
And, it is proving to have amazing value for medical education. That’s what today’s blog will cover. It will give you a detailed insight into medical animation and how it is being applied in medical animation in today’s world.
Reading the next sections, you’ll discover;
- Medical animation: a brief overview
- Why visuals and animations are mesmerizing?
- Why 3D animations are amazing for medical education?
- Medical animation for people with low health literacy
- 3 reasons that make medical animation effective
- 4 popular types of medical animation today
- A case study of 2D animation: Education for Nurses
- How a workforce solution company enhances online learning with animation?
- Satisfying answers to FAQs about medical animations
So, without further ado, let’s dive right in.
Medical animation: a brief overview
Medical animation is a short, concise educational film that can explain complicated medical procedures via illustration and animations.
It is more typical for producing professional training content and raising awareness of public health. Illustrators may demonstrate medicine in animation to make people understand how medicines work.
Why visuals and animations are mesmerizing?
Our brains are naturally wired to process images faster than anything else. As exciting as it may sound, your brain is fully capable of memorizing awe-striking visuals with ease, and plausibly subconsciously.
You don’t have to be attentive and focused when processing such visuals. You might be able to recall some of the dreamiest visuals from films like Avatar and Avengers, from your childhood quite easily.
But, if asked to recall text lessons from the school class, you might not have the same kind of response.
No matter how hard you try now, or how much time you spent reading and learning those lessons by heart (back then). It is so since our brains are naturally wired to process visuals.
Text information is complicated and harder to absorb. In fact, most of us can’t even paint a vivid picture of the scenes of a novel as we read along.
And, since there is a lack of vividness, we often find it hard to retrieve the same information when asked to do so.
Contrary to text, if we use videos for teaching the same kind of lessons, the results could be really interesting. Firstly, you would find it easier to make sense of how the machine actually operates.
Secondly, as the illustration sums up pages of text in seconds, you can internalize pictures of the illustration, and explain it later to someone else much more effectively than with provided with simple pieces of text to absorb.
And, to build authority on the above, let us add some useful stats to our knowledge. More than 70% of learners are visual learners.
That means 7 out of 10 people can only learn easily with visual aid. The remaining 20% are text learners or readers who can picture the scenes in their minds with not only great accuracy but also recall the text when they need to.
Again, these would be far more effective, if they are asked to learn with videos or visuals. Lastly, we’ve 10% of people who can recall what they hear.
Why 3D animations are amazing for medical education?
Now, it all boils down to why on earth should we use videos for medical purposes. And, if so, then why does it have to be 3D? Does it work better?
Let’s keep it simple and short.
We know that images, texts, graphs, and charts work really well for educational purposes. If you want to test it yourself, give a presentation to your classmates.
Include graphs and images and minimize text and see the result for yourself. You’ll realize the audience can comprehend your ideas better when aided with creative visuals.
And, if your presentation has 2d animations or transitions, it won’t just make you stand out in the class, but more importantly help you cut through the noise in the heads of your audience, and leave a mesmerizing touch to your presentation.
Similarly, if videos made for medical training purposes have animations and illustrations to aid the learner, there’s no doubt that learning would be more effective. And, most importantly, efficient.
To test the above hypothesis, researchers experimented to test how effective animations can be to aid learning.
To allow themselves some useful insight into the topic, they included people with varying levels of health literacy.
All groups of participants were shown animations as well as statistical resources.
Surprisingly, the spoken animations proved to be best when communicating medical information. And, the findings were irrespective of the level of health literacy of the audience.
Medical animation for people with low health literacy
What makes medical animation seriously useful is that it can foster better learning for people of varying levels of health literacy.
Be it an expert or a person with no level of health awareness, these animated videos can educate them with great ease. There are lots of people in distant areas of the world, who have had a traditional way of life.
And, medical animation may also aid people who don’t have exceptional reading skills.
Hence, medical animations are not only helpful in professional training but can also improve patient education and raise public awareness more conveniently.
A Medical animation company or illustrators can help doctors demonstrate procedures with a lot more ease to patients.
People who may not be familiar with medical jargon and problems, can easily grasp the concepts and talk about them with more confidence.
However, we must say that since one wants to make animations for medical purposes, one would need the aid of audio or text to get the message across.
Self-explanatory illustrations may not work as desired, especially when the goal is to raise public awareness or educate an audience that does not have expert knowledge of the subject matter.
3 reasons that make medical animation effective
Following are the three most common reasons that make medical animation effective;
Improves engagement
Medical animation fosters engagement in learning. Visuals evoke curiosity and help people understand with ease. And, people tend to understand simple information. Tricky or complex information is often hard to digest.
Helps you to gain detailed insight
Viewing medical animations can help you understand difficult medical concepts, and terms with ease. A little bit of demonstration helps you to navigate through critical medical procedures.
If you omit the video animation part, it could be really difficult to understand concepts with mere technical terms and long pieces of plain text.
Provides room for creativity
You must have seen animated clips circling on social media during the pandemic. Most of these focused on how dangerous Covid-19 could be if kids were negligent about their hygiene.
Though the clips were animated, they contributed a strong message and elicited an overwhelming response from the audience. That is what we got in lots of likes and shares.
That’s what medical animation can offer us.
It provides room to be creative in getting your message across. Patient education not only becomes easier with such videos but can be fun. And, we already know that when learning is fun, we can reap better outcomes.
Animation types for medical education
Following are the types of medical animation that are applicable for educational purposes;
2D medical animation
2D medical is probably the most commonly used medical animation. It is far more effective than texts, especially when it’s more about drawing engagement from your audience.
And for the pricing part, it is far more reasonable than 3D animation. Not only do learners gain a multi-sensory learning experience, but also find the videos worth watching multiple times.
In addition to the cost, 2D animation also saves you a great deal of time in comparison to 3D. It may suit you perfectly if you have a project that needs to be completed by a strict deadline.
2D medical animation is commonly used for the following purposes
- Mental health awareness
- Health awareness days
- Public service messages by national health institutions
Since it is easier to get the message across in 2D, and production takes less time, it is more common than other types of medical animation technologies.
3D medical animations
3D medical animation in medical animation can be really good to visualize objects that need detailing. Or surgical procedures. Since the execution is an arduous job, 3D animation gives a 3D perspective that allows amazing insight into the subject.
Not only does it allow the surgeon or professional to learn with ease, but also experiments and practices with great confidence. However, on the downside, 3D animation can be really expensive.
- For one, it is time-consuming
- Two, the pricing may not be affordable for everyone
A minute of animation can cost you thousands of dollars. If you choose to work with a professional animation studio in US or UK, expect no less than 3 to 5 months for project completion.
If you find 3D expensive, you can always opt for 2D medical animation.
Whiteboard animations
Medical whiteboard animations are another type of medical animation in practice.
The act of drawing devices and processes on a whiteboard not only leaves an audience curious but improves their comprehension of the subject matter.
And, one big reason for using whiteboard animations is that these are typically used to explain abstract ideas. Lastly, whiteboard animations are cost-effective.
Interactive tech
Interactive tech includes 3D interactive FX and virtual reality.
Now the trend is even going towards the use of augmented reality and mixed reality. These technologies aid medical visualization and help provide views from unique perspectives that were never seen before.
However, one must keep in mind that interactive tech for medical animation is seriously expensive. VR and AR gadgets may come useful for new forms of experimentation and research.
Side note: Wearing these gadgets for long hours will make you sweaty for sure.
Professional medical animation studio
2D animation in medical education for nurses: A case study
IntelyCare is a staffing company in the US dedicated to providing quality solutions to the workforce for nurses in America.
Since the shortage of nurses is a pressing issue among institutes, the company has a scheduling system that allows nurses the autonomy to choose shifts as per their needs.
Thus, it encourages them to attain a work-life balance, which is difficult when working highly demanding jobs in nursing.
As per their findings, nurses tend to be more productive when they are less stressed and have a healthy work-life balance.
Apart from building an intelligent scheduling system that helps in the effective allocation of nurses across all shifts, they also have a dedicated mobile app, specifically for nurses to upskill.
It includes everything from educational courses to essential training guides and SOPs when working in CCU. Keeping in view the idea that learning is effective when it’s fun, they’ve inculcated animations in the course videos.
Contrary to traditional learning, it is a seriously effective and a fun experience for nurses. And the best part, videos are though animated, they’re professional as they contain accurate information.
And, keeping in view the learning needs of modern nurses, they’ve inculcated animations with bite-sized learning content. Videos are not just monotonous and run for an enduring time.
But, these are interactive and focused on inducing micro-learning. Since the animations don’t work on their own, they’ve combined voiceover and text.
Lessons are presented in a creative way, that does not make the subject tense or boring for the nurses. And, with the use of animations, nurses can grasp concepts more quickly.
Without a doubt, it is a fine medical animation work.
FAQs:
Why does medical animation work so well?
Medical animations work well than texts, images, graphs, and charts combined. It is so since our brains are naturally wired to respond to visuals more favorably than to plain texts.
And, frankly speaking, 70% of all learners are visual learners which means their minds can process visuals at faster speeds.
Plus, since animations have the power to evoke curiosity and keep the attention of their viewers, content retention is also easier for learners.
Who may need medical animation videos?
Medical animation has a wide scope of applications. These include;
- Medical simulation
- Cellular and molecular animation
- Patient Education
- Emergency care awareness
- Forensic scene reconstruction
- Pharmaceutical processes
- Interactive learning
Know that animators may use specialized medical animation software for medical simulations and cellular and molecular animation.
Final thoughts
Let’s wrap it up. In this blog, we covered a comprehensive guide on how medical animation is being applied in medical education today.
To expand the scope of our discussion, we highlighted four essential types of medical animation; 2D and 3D medical animation, interactive technology, and whiteboard medical animation.
In addition, we also shared how medical animation fosters learning in medical education. Lastly, we answered some FAQs.
