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Robotic Patients Used to Help Train Doctors
skeletor935 writes "Due to the increase in the number of medical students in Mexico, medical schools have turned to the use of robotic patients to assist in training." From the article: "The robots are dummies complete with mechanical organs, synthetic blood and mechanical breathing systems."
An image of one of these robotic patient training kits can be found here.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
There was a nice demonstration of such a system a couple of weeks ago on UWTV (University of Washington TV).
The robot was used for instruction for surgeons and anaesthesiologists.
I smell an opportunity to commercialize this "mechanical organs" technology with another well-known product. Oooh la la!
Hopefully they get enough practice so I don't have a ton of holes in my arm while they try multiple times to take blood!
the innards of these robots put inside a Real Doll? Geeks everywhere rejoice!
On a side note, can you imagine her face on her body? (shamelessly stolen from The Simpsons)
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
You mean---something like Frankenstein?
Zoidberg: Oh, the hypochondriac's back. So what is it this time?
Fry: Well my lead pipe hurts a little-
Zoidberg: That's normal. Next patient.
A robot may not injure a human or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm, even if that human has jabbed him repeatedly in the arm with a practice needle
a robot must obey orders given to it by a human, except where it would conflict with the first law, and except when that order is "Hey, get better quick before the professor comes back, and then say I did it!"
A robot must protect itself, as long as that protection doesn't violate either the first or second law. Hmmm, this one sort of limits how many robots will be in the ICU in the first place eh?
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
Why are they using our politians? They should use their own.
Train Doctors?
Do you see what I see!!
I remember reading an article in a scientific magazine back in the late eighties / early nineties, about animatronic dummies designed to train medics. I think it was in germany or the UK
Keep up the great jokes!
Do you think for the next article you could like summarize what the writeup says and maybe post it within the first five posts or so?
Thanks!
The dog got a hold of him and chewed em up real good :-(
We could only wish our medical students in the US needed robots as test patients. Unfortunately there is a monopoly on doctors, and the problem will only get worse.
The AMA is a lobbying organization with complete control (last paragraph) over the number of doctors.
Mexico has not enacted these same licensing restrictions, and surely allows for more doctors who can be used outside the country. Mexicans are well known to send a great amount of income back home.
The downside is that our AMA is working to prevent foreign doctors from coming over so easily. This could mean lower medical prices in Mexico though.
Oh, it had to be said:
"I got gonorrhea!" -- Cosmo Kramer
Please allow I, C3PO, to be the first to welcome our new Mexican medical overlords. I'm sure I can be of great assitance to you as besides Spanish I am fluent in over six million forms of communication.
Since we're discussing medicine in México, I would like to chip in my two pesos about the experience of receiving medical care in México versus getting care in the US; I got care in both countries in the last month or so.
In México, the care I received was excellent. After being sick for three days with Montezuma's Revenge, my friend's cousin, who happens to be a doctor came by, asked me a number of questions in Spanish, looked me over, and gave me some antibiotics to stop the sickness along with a couple other medicines to help me. The examination and care was done very well. Total cost: $25 for house call doctor visit, $5 for medicines. By the evening, I felt great again.
When I came back to the US, I saw a doctor through Kaiser. The nurse treated me like a mechanical doll instead of a person. The doctor was good, but only very briefly examined me before telling me I had a virus and that there was basically nothing they could do. The cost for this care $25 co-pay, plus $200 a month to be on insurance to get this kind of care.
In México, they don't have to worry about malpractice lawsuits. A person can be a full-up doctor at 26 years of age (such as the doctor I saw down there). Here, one has to be about 30 before they can be a doctor; they spend more time in medical school and less time getting real-world hands-on experience. Most drugs can be obtained without prescription (the exception being addictive drugs like valium and what not)--this causes people to get antibiotics when they have viruses, unfortunatly.
Which one is better? I prefer the Mexican system; less HMO BS and more real care.
The reason I think these will be universal? They're just like real patients with one big exception: THEY DON'T HAVE LAWYERS!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
..... Is it FULLY functional in EVERY way?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Why was I programmed to feel pain!!
This will make things more efficient, but what they really need to do is pair up these robotic patients with robotic doctors and cut out the middleman!
Riverside Methodist Hospital in Ohio began using these patient care simulators earlier this summer (June 9, 2005).
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
... be more fun if they had it shock the hell out of the doctors for each mistake. Say bout like a cattle prod.
Shadus
http://www.gamespot.com/ds/action/traumacenter/ind ex.html It's innovative in a disturbing sort of way. Probably the only game where I might faint from virtual blood.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
"All right, robot, what seems to be the problem?"
"Well, I've been having this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side..."
The article is, of course, extremely light on details. The only difference between this and "SimMan" which has been in use for years and years seems to be the inclusion "artificial blood," whatever that means.
Also, this is pretty funny: "I would feel nervous if this was (a) real patient," said Mendoza after drawing blood from a plastic arm.
"With this (dummy patient) I can practice many times."
Because jabbing a needle into plastic is just like jabbing a needle into human flesh.
The sorts of simulators are very useful for simulating emergency situations, but aren't really suitable for things like surgery. It's nice to have the motions of checking pulses, barking commands for IVs and epinephrine, and setting up a defibrillator down pat for when a patient is crashing before your very eyes. Since there is very little actual manipulation of the patient, this is exactly for what we use SimMan (cardiac arrhythmias, emergency intubations, and the like). The monitor values (projected on a screen for all to see) are changed by a preceptor as you do things like move from nonrebreathing masks to bag mask ventilation or add a second IV. I just don't see how this would be used to do surgical simulation at all.
But a vast improvement over what the medical industry had back in the 60's and 70's. They had simple manikins that had rubber ateries and veins for students to try to draw blood or start IV's. Other manikins had electricial impulse generators that simulate any kind of heart rythium that the tester wishes.
On the downside, these ancient units required large amounts of support gear and broke down frequently. Not to mention the COST! At the time of introduction, a typical patient simulator ran nearly a million dollars 60's money. Pretty much the only institution that could afford these units was the military. Very few were bought and subsequently were not used very much due to the massive amount of downtime due to the mechanical and electronic complexity.
These newer units have shown a marked improvement in realisim, and dependability have resurrected the patient simulators as a new tool to educate a intern or student on new problems or new procedures. Hospitals are buying these units to provide CE (continuing education) for their staff for loss prevention and quality assurance of care.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Where I'm from, we call them engineers...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
I think it is kind of sad that I and I assume most U.S. citizens disregard our neighbor to our south as an irrelevant dog at the table of the U.S. waiting for our table scraps.
Good for Mexico! I hope that this is part of a much larger trend for Mexico where they start to take the technological lead from the U.S.. I think it would not only be good for Mexico but for North America in general. I think the North American countries would have much more effect on the world if the countries other than the U.S. were much more economically and intellectually powerful.
how common is the use of these 20-few robots in the university?
-is it only the first years that are using them, or upper classmen as well?
-What percentage of their med school prep classes will involve real live human beings? ---->I know from the article that they are using robots, but not how they are using them
I also find it hard to believe that they have more doctors than needy patients who need medical care or hospitals. That they'd have to "resort" to robots because there are too many doctors. Why can't they just practice small things on human beings?
I know this sounds horrible, but they can always practice on the really poor people, when they're somewhat good enough. If I were dying of a horrible injury or whatever, and I have absolutely no health care program or money for hospitals, I wouldn't mind taking a chance on free medicare by students.
Nurse: Roll up our sleeve please
...Then, of course, she gets to try again.....Thankfully, coming up with blood this time.
{jabs needle into inside of elbow joint}
Nurse: Looks like the vein rolled...needle might be dull
Me: {after long pause} My arm is staring to ache a bit...
Nurse: That's probably because the needle went into muscle tissue
Me: {after another long pause} do ya think you can take the needle out of my arm now?
Nurse: Oh yeah..{finally pulls needle out}
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Check out the gynecological model.
To counter your good experience in Mexico, I had a friend who got hurt in Cancun Mexico this past summer. He got a couple of cheap stitches to stop the bleeding, and a shot of some pain-killer (that he said didn't work anyway) for $450 CASH. He got told that for $25 more, he can be assured he got a clean needle for the shot.
...
Real care? I dunno, guess its a matter of opinion, but I like to know that if I'm getting a shot, I'm getting a clean needle
I'm so glad to see that a country that can't afford to even provide good living conditions for its citizens can afford to spend 1.3 million on a robotic hospital. I'm sure that's money better spent than on, say, roads and sanitation.
If the Mexican government spent more money on their infrastructure and less on "pie in the sky" robotic hospitals, maybe their citizens would stay there instead of border jumping.
Mexico isn't the only place with a public health care system...try (Korea, France, etc.). Just an FYI
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
In other news, a robot has filed suit against the Mexican Medical Board. The robot has accused a medical student of removing its central I/O system instead of the rubber tumor that was scheduled for removal. There are also complaints of robotic harrassment from other medical lab droids...
:%s:work:/.:g
After reading the subject of the post, I thought TFA was about steam machine repairmen using robotic patents in their jobs!
Please. Not even a beowulf cluster of robot doctors can save that dead horse.
Do the robotic patients come paired with robotic lawyers so students can get used to the malpractice lawsuits?
Doctor, He's Crashing!
Give him 5 mg of ativan, start an epi drip, and somebody get me an emergency boot disk, STAT!
Sigs are for lusers. Hey! wait a second...
When I was an undergrad, one of my professors told me that 20-30 years ago the army tried to institute a program whereby they would give you schooling to be a doctor in return for a extended stint in the army (sorry, I don't have a link to verify). But the upshot was that the AMA lobbied against it, so it didn't pass. If it had passed, then there would be quite few more doctors than there are now, which presumably would give us cheaper medical care.
If you give a liberal an enema, he'll turn transparent.
What are you doing Dave? I am afraid I cannot let you do that.
Our medical industry is in the shitter due to the AMA restricting doctor numbers (driving costs up and demand up) and the HMO Act of Congress. Both of these statist mechanism force costs up and quality/safety down.
The freer a business market is to accept competition, the better cost and safety gets.
"Robotic Patients Used to Help Train Doctors, search for Sarah Connor"
AT&ROFLMAO
Mexico is a well.. poor country. Its cheaper there because the market can't afford to pay for $400 doctor visits.
$25 is Mexico is unfortunately out of the range for most of its poor. They're probably in alot of the same boat as our poor, except our hospitals are required to treat the indigent while I have no idea what Mexico's hospitals are required to do for the poor.
If you saw everything the AMA lobbies against, the RIAA and MPAA wouldn't scare you.
Why? Why was I programmed to feel pain?
...the Operation board game commercial started playing in my head.
Heh!
Wasted all my mod points earlier, but this post really cracked me up! Mod this up somebody!
You could always fly to India or Thailand for a more qualified doctor, better health care facility, and a fraction the price of an American doctor.
e s/main689998.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/21/60minut
However... If you needed to sue for malpractice then your up the proverbial creek.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I don't think it's the doctors that drive up the cost of healthcare. It's the entire structure, the monstrosity, known as HEALTHCARE that makes medical care so expensive. This encompasses everything from the cost of getting into and through medical school to insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, lawyers, and the industries that support them. such a tangled web we weave...
This will provide the finest treatment of robotic patients anywhere!
Bastard... some of us are at work.
by limiting the number of medical students you think... the medical students get shittier?
You would think that with the limited resources and high level of unemployment in Mexico they would have figured out by now that they could save a lot of the money they are spending on robotics by just substituting volunteers to be real patients.
I found this overlord post to be not only hilarious, but intelligent as well (except for the bad grammar, heh). Definitely on-topic.
LOL, have you ever been outside the city where you live? have you been to mexico? you have no idea of what you are saying. Most mexicans go "border jumping" because luickily there are amny LAZY us citizens that will pay very well for many basic chores
Check out Website development, maintenance and accesibility cons
Could the difference not be related to the fact that the Mexican doctor was a friend of a friend versus the "faceless" American doctor? It's easier to care about a person (and to lessen the costs) with whom you have some connection.
Also, and this is more of a personal philosophy of mine, perhaps the American doctors didn't prescribe any drugs 'cause you didn't really need them. I never use drugs when I'm sick, myself (I'm actually sick right now) not 'cause I'm a Christian Scientist but because I prefer to let my immune system do the work (if the work isn't too hard, as in Montezuma's Revenge, most flus, etc.)
Its not the doctors, its the AMA.
:) Great history of the nemesis I feel is worse than the RIAA, MPAA and DoD combined.
For 150 years they've lobbied for every item that drives up medical costs. I came across this article about 7 years ago, my first LRC article ever
Poor people in mexico have to go to the IMSS (a hospital system dedicated exclusively to Social Security). The service is awful, the medicines you have to buy them yourself, and most of the money is leeched for retired workers. There was a case where a woman had to buy the oxygen for her mother because there weren't O2 tanks at the hospital :-/
The management system is so bad that it needs a billionaire rescue before it collapses. And you thought the american social security was hard to maintain. Heh.
Vader: Nooooooooo!
This isn't an even comparison. Health care in the US is privatized for the most part, with only a small percentage of health care facilities and professionals dedicated to socialized work for lower-income patients. In Mexico there are at least 3 large entities providing socialized medicine for various types of employees:
ISSTE - "Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado"IMSS - "Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social"
PEMEX - "Petróleos Mexicanos"
(Sorry I didn't include URLs, kind of in a hurry as I type this. Feel free to Google the acaronyms for more details)
In addition to these large organizations there are lots of private hospitals, clinics and independent doctors. This makes for a much more diverse health care "market" (if we can call it that) in Mexico than in the US. The doctors people see will depend on the industry/company where they work, or on their income level if they can afford private care.
Mexicans are well known to send a great amount of income back home.This may be true for Mexican workers whose families are still in Mexico, but it's somewhat of a generalization. There's a lot of Mexican immigrants in the US and other countries who don't send money "back home" because home, and their family, are now in the country where they reside.
This could mean lower medical prices in Mexico though.Medical care in Mexico costs much less than in the US. But you have to balance that against the fact that the average income in Mexico is also much lower, taxation levels are different, and the cost of medication is also different (sometimes higher, sometimes lower) in Mexico than in the US.
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
The robots won't help train doctors in good bedside presence and patient communication. "Its inoperable, i'm sorry - You have a month to live, at most."
verses "This unit is hosed, the permission bits are screwed up and its down to 18% - i'm sorry."
No, but I believe service and price do. Students get wealthier. As the article I point to shows, you don't see many poor bad doctors but you see many lawyers fail. The AMA keeps bad doctors wealthy, the ABA doesn't wield much power.
Sounds like he got the "stupid tourist treatment."
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000DMFM.01.LZ ZZZZZZ.jpg
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Aye, the problem with US healthcare isn't the doctors or AMA, its the insanely high number of middlemen making huge profits. Especially insurance organizations- they take a large cut out of the middle, and actually produce nothing of value. Thats why we need national health care- cut out the middle men entirely, and you could see prices cut in half, with no difference in service than you see from an HMO or PPO today.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Since he was in Cancun, I'd say it's a 99% chance that was the case. Which is fine, stupid tourists should be deprived of money so that smart locals can have a better life (cynical, me?)
I'm not sure exactly what program you are talking about. But there is currently a program, though both the Army and the Navy, that will pay for your medical school in exchange for your service. It works out that you serve one year of active duty for every year they pay, with a minimum of three years. They not only cover your tuition, but they also pay for your books and supplies, and give you a living stipend. So while it might not be the exact program you describe, it seems pretty close.
Politicians at either side of the border are exactly the same type of mindless robots.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
I guess dead people are now totally useless.
The nose should light up red if they make a mistake. :)
Do you really think that the AMA is restricting doctor numbers? If so, could you please provide a reference? I would think that doctor numbers are limited more by the following:
1) High barriers to entry including:
a) Large education costs (~$54k a year (tuition + living expenses) for a top private school)
b) Years and years and years of training
c) Extensive (and continuous) licensing requirements (from the government, not the AMA)
2) Big red target for lawsuits
3) Increasing operating (no pun intended) costs (e.g. malpractice)
4) Long hours, large workloads, large responsibilities,
I have never heard of the AMA discouraging people going into med school to keep numbers down. And as far as practicing medicine, that is regulated by the state medical licensing organizations (AFAIK).
-- The Genesis project? What's that?
I live in Cancun. Your friend was ripped off. Which hospital and doctor was this ?
i agree. some medical care is better than none, especially in the rural areas of 2nd and 3rd world countries. i volunteered in a 3rd world country for a few months in the government run medical system. once i told them i had my bachelor's degree in science/psychology, they were ready to let me have my own practice and prescribe medicine! after a few weeks of on the job training, i actually proved useful. i can't imagine they wouldn't be able to utilize medical students, and at the same time enable those students to be trained. in addition, we don't want to reinforce treating patients like objects. robots are objects, students practice on robots.. the impact on their thinking may be small, but it's still important.
(sorry for the repeat.. slashdot told me the first comment was lost... anyway, you get the gist.)
The downside of course is that you still only receive military pay...could pay more to be a doctor in Mexico.
I listened to a story about this on NPR in the Spring. It was very interesting. The simulator will give a blood flow response, etc. It's not perfect - no blood vessels, rubbery skin, ... but the simulator still feels pretty much like it does in real life when you feel it through surgical gloves. While prepping each simulator for a new trainee is expensive, it's possible to make mistakes (and learn from them) on a dummy without actually killing anyone.
The audio story has Nell Boyce running through a surgical procedure on an actual dummy. Her reaction was that it feels very much like a live person.
Very interesting, I thought.
A doctor friend confided to me once that most of his patients were dummies...in particular, the guy that tried to cut and weld his oxygen cannula tube with a lighter. Oops.
Uh, not porn retard. And for those with an above 4th grade vocabulary, it was hinted to be just what it was.
This will run awry with the new obscenity crack down that seems to be brewing in the U.S.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
The link further in this thread is a good overview. Here's some more information:
The wiki while in dispute, points to others who acknowledge that the AMA runs State Medical Boards. If you query your state's SMB on how they categorize medical schools, they'll acknowledge using the AMA's grading system.
The AMA is a terrible organization, already convicted of violating the Sherman anti-trust act. They've even manipulated dieticians (my step mother), USDA and FDA guidelines and numerous studies regarding new medical therapies.
Of course, if there's a risk in there it's that the "mechanical organs" could be as bad as the real ones :)
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
There is always the Cadaver-In-Command.
Seditiously,
Kilgore Trout, M.D.
We have currently have two of these at my medical school. I'm a first year medical student (started in August), so my exposure is limited, but I've already had one "human patient simulator" encounter. Although it was fascinating froma technological standpoint, the usefulness seems to be pretty limited. My school is working hard to implement it into the curriculum, but it's not as practical as they seem.
The first issue that arises is that you only have first and second year students on campus (usually). Many third year students spend most of their time in the hospital, and fourth year students often do "away" rotations at hospitals they are interested in doing their residency yet. Unfortunately, first year students don't know enough to gain any real practice from the simulator. We don't know any pathophysiology or pharmacology, so when it comes time to start managing the patient we're useless. And case managment is what simulators are best for. For the first years, my school seems primarily focused on teaching students what kind of reasoning and thoughts need to be running through our head. The simulator was not used to give us any sort of medical experience. Although we had free reign on the patient, we had no idea where to even begin. And even if we did, we don't know any pharmacology. So pretty much our experience was sitting in the room and listening to the resident advise us on how to develop our thought process. That could be done without a half a million dollar patient simulator. Although the second years would certainly be in a better position to gain something valuable from the HPS, they still don't have the aquired knowledge base to get any real practice in. As I've already mentioned, 3rd and 4th year students are usually too busy to come back on campus and mess with a simulator. They're getting better experience watching real physicians treat real patients.
The second issue with the simulator is how limited it is. Although it is very technologically advanced, it is primarily useful for simulating emergency medical situations. Sure, you can check his pupils, or take his blood pressure, or hook up EKG leads. All the physical signs are there. You can give him medication (by scanning the barcode before you inject) and he will respond. Again, great for emergency medical situations, but not so hot for trauma and medical management. It's one thing to manage someone's diabetic coma, it's another game completely as an internest dealing with someone's changing medical needs over the course of a week while they're in the hospital.
In summary: they're a nice technological toy, but they are quite difficult to integrate them meaningfully into a medical curriculum.
KEIKO: Worf... have you ever done this before? Delivered a baby?
WORF: No. But I have taken the Starfleet Emergency Medical Course. In a computerized simulation, I assisted in the delivery of a human baby.
KEIKO: Sometimes... things don't go by the book...
WORF: I am sure everything will be fine.
. . .
WORF: My computer simulation was not like this. That delivery was very orderly.
KEIKO: Well, I'm sorry...
In addition to manikin 'robots' there are also VR simulators that are used for training. On the whole these are not as effective but are good for some procedures. The major manufacturer of these is Immersion.
I think the US should follow suit. Otherwise we risk losing out to Mexico as the market leader in the burgeoning field cybernetic medical care. I know we'll all feel very sheepish when Astroboy is going to Guadalajara for his dialysis....
Daily Planet has a video on making a smarter dummy. It's basically the same idea. Sadly when I saw the show the first thing that came to mind was when does the hot chick version come out.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
MSpatient: Used for a wide variety of easy operations. Unfortunately, sometimes the patient will randomly die without cause, causing the students uneeded frustration. It also has the nasty habit of simulating diseases it wasn't supposed to in the first place and occasionally making up new ones.
LinuxPatient: Only useful for the simulation of a few very difficult operations. The patient responds exactly how it should under the given treatment. Unfortunatley, sometimes it is too accurate in its reponse.
MacPatient: Used for the simulation of plastic surgery. However, the mannequin used is sometimes too attractive, causing the operating student to loose focus.
Boo hoo, the AMA is evil because they've manipulated my stepmother. Also: I have nothing to back this up. Maybe if everyone goes to lewrockwell.com, they'll see the light!
Then again, maybe not.
If you're going to push an argument forward, do so with something a little more impressive than "because I say so."
For some high risk procesures, these simulators are nice, but there is no substitue for working on real live people. Even if the number of Mexican medical school docs has increase, I'm sure tehre are still tons of people in Mexico who recieve no medical care or are on wait lists months long to get live preserving treatment. Why not at least give them a chance at timely treatment, even if it does mean being a learning tool.
Just my $0.02
There was (is) an Amiga game which I think is called Life & Death, and you as the doctor had to perform a surgery on the patient. However, the only thing I remember about the game is the rapidly swelling pools of blood, the quickly rising heartbeat of the patient ... and in the end the patient opened his eyes and let out a scream. Of course, the scream rattled the speaker on my little tv* and I almost got a heart attack.
* Back in the old days, we used tv's - not monitors. And we had to made do with a floppy drive. You were lucky if you had a hard drive.
Here's a link to a recent TV story done by Discover Channel Canada. See the article "Making a smarter dummy." http://www.exn.ca/dailyplanet/view.asp?date=9/27/2 005
The only inaccuracy in the story is that the patient simulators are priced from ~$30K to 200K.
And for the record (and a shameless plug), the manufacturer in Sarasota is METI.
http://www.meti.com/