Gaumard Scientific – An Innovative Look At Pediatric Doctor Training
There are newer cell phones, computers and even water bottles that light up when someone needs to drink water. It is excellent for a person to have these things as a luxury. Most people think of this area when talking about technology. Besides technology being used for travel and entertainment, it is really developing in the medical field. Gaumard Scientific has managed to create lifelike robots, especially for pediatric training. This gives medical students a hand on experience before the real-life people. Robots have been made for years and used in the medical field. At first, it was just foam bodies that were in the shape of a human, then little by little more training technology came out.
Gaumard was able to put together the little pieces of technology and new technology together to create an optimal robot. Gaumard has really been able to push the technology pass what has been ever used in the past. They have a whole family of robots. One that gives birth and allows medical students helping in the birthing process and deal with recovery on the mother’s side of health problems. Gaumard has a thirty-week preemie robot to practice caring for smaller babies who need more care because of underdevelopment. (Gaumard, 2018) Lastly and the most detailed robot is the robot they call Hal. Hal is pretty incredible in what he can do. Hal is modeled after a five-year-old child.
First, Hal can talk and show emotion. He has both a preprogram response and an option where the instructor can take over wirelessly to speak as a five-year-old would. He has “nine emotional states angry, quizzical, yawning, anxious, worried, amazed, crying, ongoing pain, and transient pain. ” (Mayor, 2018) The facial expressions are so detailed. When he is crying tears fall down his face, and his eyes close. This robot responds, can detect and turn its head towards the person and respond to those around him to the extent of course. For example, when the medical student asks and shows Hal the pain chart, he can respond appropriately based on the program the instructor is using. These features are very important to students who are using this robot for studying. The students can be able to visualize the reaction of the patient, so they can be prepared in the real situation. Another example of the lifelikeness of this robot is that it simulates breathing and cries tears. Hal can cry and scream like a small child would when they are scared. Hal can also bleed and if finger pricked a real blood glucose machine could test that blood.
When used to practice inserting needles and draining blood through a tube, Hal really bleeds from the sites set up. A medical student is able to hear the lung sounds when using a stethoscope. (Simon, 2018) His skin color will change to mimic a sickness or dehydration. Hal is also able to show up when attached to the real patient monitors. His heart rate, saturation levels, and blood pressure will all show up like a person would show up on a monitor. It is also about convinced when it comes to Hal. Hal is controlled wirelessly via tablet or computer. This enables students to learn not just in the hospital but a lot of other situations. Future doctors and nurses should be prepared for any situation. Have a robot without needing to be plugged in makes it easier to experience different types of situations without having to experience it for the first time when real people are hurt. It is truly incredible what this company did to create a tool to train doctors in a safer, more efficient way. This invention will change the world. The first significant aspect it will decrease the number of mistakes made by new pediatric doctors due to lack of experience. Especially when it comes to intubating, giving a needle, and dealing with a seizure in a small child. (Simon, 2018)
It could be scary as a doctor who has never practiced on anything besides a lifeless manikin to complete tasks with such high of a pressure. Not only that, but they also can communicate with the robot as a patient, so they can absorb these experiences as they did that on a real human patient. Children are more complex and have smaller bodies, organs, and airways. To be able to practice and perfect a skill will not only increase patient mortality rate but it will also create more confident doctors. Another benefit of the robot Hal is the hands-on experience in seeing symptoms. Children are harder than adults in some circumstances because they cannot articulate what is wrong. (Simon, 2018) Having a robot like Hal for training would give them a general idea what to look for in a child’s body language and facial expression to a particular symptom. If they are seeing a patient and see something a little similar to what they have seen on Hal, they will have a little bit more of a better understanding.
Communication is another thing that greatly helps society when doctors practice on Hal. If used in the mode that the instructor can control Hal’s speech, with an instructor who has a lot of experience with children, it could open up even more potential more doctor to patient communication. Children should not be handled like adults. They are smaller and still have a developing brain. For society, it was important that the child pediatric robot was made first. Children are so complex in both emotionally and physically. Creating confident, knowledge doctor will make society as a whole healthier to live in everyday life.
When we talk about electric devices or technology devices, we have to talk about the price of it. The amount we have to pay for it has to be compared to the profits and benefits we can get from it. The price of the robots is around one thousand to forty thousand dollar. (Gaumard, 2018) Those prices are acceptable for the medical purpose because with a forty thousand dollars robot we can train many doctors and nurses to reduce the risk to the lowest percent. However, we will have to rethink about getting that robot if it cost five hundred thousand and up. The reason is that the purpose of the robot is for surgery and difficult illness which requires doctor and nurses have to get inside of the robot in a medical way. It also means that doctors and nurses will have to make damages to the robots. This tells us that the repairing and maintaining fee will be so expensive.
At the same time, we can use the same amount of money to help many people with the special illness. Some people when seeing the video may ask if this is ethical. Every company must think about if their product is ethical. Gaumard has taken precautions to make sure the robot was life-like as possible without being distracting. They did not include birthmarks or blemishes so that “he is real enough to be an effective tool, but not so real that he becomes a distraction. ” (Simon, 2018) In other words, the company was trying not to cross the line between the robot being too real and not being real enough.
It may still cross the line for some people that Hal has so many aspects like breathing, bleeding and being hooked up to a real patient monitor, but the good in this situation outweighs the bad. Even though Hal is considered to be in the AI group of robots, he cannot learn on his own. He is entirely controlled by a tablet or computer that the instruction handles. He is in no way can learn on his own. He is not for entertainment purposes, but more medical purposes. Medical innovation like Hal should not be stopped and should also not be categorized entertainment type AI because they serve different purposes. Of course, Hal is not a substitute from experience with real children.
Children are such complex little humans that it would be close to impossible to capture that in a robot, but this robot can help a little bit. Especially with being able to recognize symptoms and surgical skills. This product is ethical because it serves a good purpose and is not designed to be in the control of humans. It is a tool or one day a stepping stone in the pediatric nurse and doctor programs. Hal will change lives one day with the training he provides to doctors. As long as it stays in the control of instructors, it could be a widespread training tool used by every hospital and medical school. Children are one of the most important pieces to the future. They are our future. The best care would come from the most experienced doctors in both knowledge and training. Hal is a tool that will help many doctors achieve that goal. It will be interesting when more adult robots come into the market as well. This new technology has even more potential in the future. It will continue to help improve the society for human health wise.
