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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."
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 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
I'm sure you know that Frankenstein was in fact the doctor, not the monster.
Having not read the article, I can imagine this robot being somewhat like the Medical Reward in The Sims 2, complete with buzzing noises, squishy unnecessary organs and red alarm light.
Info on the current capabilities of a patient care simulator can be found here and here.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
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 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.
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.
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.
* Except that we didn't. If you were the least bit serious about working with the Amiga, perfectly good monitors were available for every model made.