Stanford Dummy Experiment

[andygates]

We have a new medical training tool, an interactive dummy in an entire false operating theatre.  The thing's like Tickle Me Elmo on steroids: you can set it up with a medical history, send it episodes, and the damn thing will choke and gurgle and its vital-signs monitor will beep and fibrillate like a good 'un.  It's a team trainer: the team do their thing, the whole session is videoed and then reviewed afterwards in a seminar with other teams.

I had to set it up on the network today, and damn if I didn't go all evil towards the rubbery thing.  It's not realistic -- it's the right size, but it has the same appearance as those first-aid resus dummies you might have seen.  Damn thing breathes on the table, though, and I had to repeatedly roll vs. Willpower not to go into the room and poke and abuse it.  Couldn't resist sending it a couple of episodes, though.  Twitch, fucker.  Flatline! 

It was very unsettling and not made any better by knowing that everyone else who sees it does that too.  Not the most glowing reflection on human nature.  It might be because it's in the uncanny valley, but it might just be that people are shits when they can get away with it.

In lighter news, we're getting the dummy baby soon.  I fully plan to swap its "gurgle choke" MP3s for soundbites from the Exorcist.  Because the video of a team of medics being told as they intubate their sprog that their mother sucks cocks in Hell, that's too rich to pass up.

Comments

[teahisme.livejournal.com]

ROFL ... I'd say you wouldn't do that, but I really think you would.

I know the dummies you speak of. Yes they are creepy. The notion of baby saying, "red rum" repeatedly makes me giggle too.

I am curious though. What sort of techy things do you need to do to "set one up?"

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The dummy controller PC and the video suite PC just needed to be brought onto our network and teased up to spec with our standard antivirus, support and update tools - the vendor provided them in a workgroup, which meant that we couldn't share the video across the whole site. Now, we can have remote viewers, which means more experienced (ie, expensive, booked and precious) consultants.