Medical school is creepy enough as it is: Students get to test their surgical skills on dead human bodies and live animals. An article in The Daily Mail reported about the chilling way with which a Russian company has decided to up the creepiness factor.
In Kazan, Russia, a factory is rolling out "patient simulator" dolls called ENSIM RAN that looked very much like living human beings. They are designed to act as realistic surgical training dummies for inexperienced medical students and providers.
An ENSIM RAN doll is able to mimic an ill person in all the worst ways. It can make the appropriate noises, such as coughing and – if a surgeon is careless at aiming his or her scalpel – bloodcurdling screaming.
It can also release fluids that look like real blood and urine from particular parts of its body. It will even convulse as if it were suffering a real seizure.
Replacing human patients with robotic dolls
The ENSIM RAN was designed by the Skolkovo Innovation Centre. The dolls are manufactured by Kazan-based company Eidos Medicine based on specifications provided by the Moscow-based Skolkovo science project.
Eidos described its patient simulator dolls as highly complex healthcare simulators with the highest realism possible. The dolls will be sold to medical schools and hospitals. They will be used to train students on various medical practices, such as treating physical injuries to handling heart attacks.
It is difficult to practice resuscitation and intensive medical care on an actual patient. Practitioners would have to look for an appropriate patient who has the right disease to be treated. Furthermore, mistakes made during the treatment could spiral out of control. They could cost serious complications or even death to any human participant who agreed to go under the knife.
Russian patient simulator robot reacts like real human
Each ENSIM RAN unit is designed to simulate the appearance and internals of a middle-aged human male who is six feet tall and weighs 140 pounds. It is loaded with features to fool the user into thinking it is a real person.
Its eyes can blink and release fake tears. The rest of its body can release colored fluids to mimic bleeding and perspiration. Their joints are able to move in a natural manner.
There are a dozen spots on its body that can produce the pulse of a heartbeat. Its lips and fingers can change color from healthy flesh to sickly blue. It is also programmed to imitate certain seizures.
ENSIM RAN is also able to replicate respiratory ailments. It will issue coughing noises, make wheezing sounds, and go limp from a feigned feinting spell.
The Russian-designed robot patient can be subjected to CPR, defibrillator, and intubation techniques. They can also be administered injections and subjected to urinary catheters without endangering a real-life human.
If you think ENSIM RAN was creepy enough, meet its pediatric counterpart
Its competitor in the creepy robot award is Pediatric Hal. Called "the world’s most superior pediatric affected person simulator," it does a lot of the same things as ENSIM RAN.
Unlike the fairly huge Russian robot, Hal is built to look and act like a five-year-old boy. It is designed to serve as a test dummy for future pediatricians to ply their trade.
Hal looks and acts so realistic that students found it very distressing to work with the robot during tense situations. Its creator, Gaumard Scientific, admitted to deliberately designing it to inflict the maximum emotional stress on students.
Find out what irresponsible "experts" on medicine are testing on their hapless victims at MedicalExtremism.com.
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