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July 20, 2005
Captology slices, dices, and saves lives
Put aside budgeting or improving memory (those are cool uses of captology, too). The New Yorker reports on Mr. Martin, a lifelike, technological mannequin that's helping train the medical students of tomorrow:
Fortunately, Martin is not a real patient but a mannequin, an electronic instructional device known in medicine as a simulator. In many ways, he looks and behaves like a living person: his blue eyes blink, his pupils dilate, his skin is pliant, and his chest expands and contracts as he breathes. If you place a stethoscope over the spot where his heart should be, you can hear authentic beating sounds. His lips, tongue, and windpipe can swell—as a person’s would in the event of a severe allergic reaction—and his teeth can be knocked out.
Does it work? The article reports on research by Dr. Richard Satava, who tested the performance by surgeons who had used a simulator vs. those who had not. In a nicely designed study, he discovered that surgeons who had used the simulator completed procedures 29% faster, less likely to hesitate, make errors, etc (check the article for the details).
So it seems that this type of simulator is perfect! Why wouldn't we use it?
Well, let's just think through one ethical implication: Although technologies are often thought of as neutral, they're not. They come with a bunch of cultural values and assumptions. After all, who designed them? Middle-aged, well-educated white males? How does that influence the simulator itself? This isn't a direct criticism of Martin the Mannequin, but of simulators in general. Let's assume that Martin the Mannequin is a young man from America, which we can infer because he's Caucasian and young-looking. He seems to have some an internal medical condition. Would it be the same as another patient from another country, where the diet/exercise/lifestyle is very different?
Certainly, for most medical conditions, they would manifest similarly across populations. But there are many conditions that are typical only in very specific populations. And if a teaching program were to only use mannequins representing certain populations (which they're not, but play along), would it affect surgeon's conception of disease in various cultural/ethnic groups? You bet.
So how do the simulation designers account for this?
The answer, of course, is that they can't. Once a technology tries to become everything to everyone, it's useless. But as much as possible, simulators should go hand-in-hand with real-life experiences. As they say, you can't learn it all in a book. So while a persuasive technology may do incredible good, it's always--ALWAYS!--necessary to think through the potential downsides, and to educate the users of your design's implications.
Posted by Ramit Sethi at July 20, 2005 10:34 AM