Reality and virtual reality are, famously, two different things. That is especially true in healthcare. In the cartoon’s virtual world, the doctor is already thinking about highly precise diagnostics, intelligent assistance systems, and elegantly interconnected streams of data. The patient, meanwhile, imagines herself engaged in athletic, almost weightless training. In both minds, the future seems to be working remarkably well.

Reality outside the headset is, well, rather less weightless. Papers, printouts, and reports are piling up on the desk, the printer is working with the stamina of a bad-tempered co-therapist, and the patient is sitting there with a crutch, bulging binders, and an hourglass in the middle of very real healthcare delivery. Virtual reality meets healthcare reality and between the two lies roughly the distance from a vision to a fax machine.

That is exactly why this cartoon is so spot on. It is not making fun of technology; it is making fun of the charmingly German habit of embedding even the most modern ideas into the administrative machinery of the present. At the front, people are already thinking about robotics, smart diagnostics, and digital precision, while in the background paper is still pouring out of the printer as if personally determined to prove that, in Germany, innovation must first pass through proper filing procedures.

And yet the idea behind the image is anything but silly. Virtual reality in medicine, and especially in multiple sclerosis care, could be far more than a futuristic gimmick. It could help train movement patterns, improve balance and coordination, make therapy more motivating, and present complex issues in a more accessible way. What sounds rather dry when described as a “digital application” could, at its best, become a tool that makes therapy more practical, more individual, and perhaps even a little more engaging.

Because MS management is rarely a straight road. It involves MS symptoms, fatigue, mobility, training, treatment decisions, and the constant question of how good medical care can be reconciled with real life. This is precisely where digital and immersive applications could help: not as a substitute for reality, but as a smart addition to it. They could make visible what has so far remained abstract. They could make exercises more appealing when they might otherwise feel like a chore. And they could help tailor care a little more closely to the individual person.

But the cartoon also shows, just as clearly, where things still fall short. The technological vision is there, but it lands in a system that still functions remarkably often through media discontinuities, isolated solutions, and paper-based logic. The future is wearing a VR headset; the present is sorting printouts. Or to put it another way: we are already capable of imagining digital worlds, but not always of properly connecting the real world of care.

That is no minor detail, but the real punchline. A VR headset alone does not create good care. Just as a new password does not equal digitalization, and a PDF is not the same thing as data management. If information is not brought together, if processes are not aligned, and if clinical routine still consists of searching, scanning, re-entering, and making follow-up calls, then even the most beautiful virtual world remains, above all, virtual.

And yet the cartoon is not pessimistic. It shows, rather beautifully, that doctor and patient are at least looking in the same direction. Both are looking ahead. Both see possibilities. Both want care that is smarter, more effective, and better suited to everyday life. That is more than technological romanticism. It is the idea that digital tools should genuinely support people  in understanding, in training, in deciding, and in living with a complex disease.

Perhaps that is the real point of this May motif: the future has already arrived in healthcare, but so far mainly as an idea. Inside the headset, it is already quite advanced. On the desk, however, it still has to fight its way through stacks of paper, printer noise, and system boundaries. Or, to put it another way: virtual reality is ready for takeoff. It would be nice if reality could slowly catch up.