An inanimate training apparatus, made up of a plastic box with holes to place a laparoscopic camera and graspers, is in critical condition after a practice session with a group of surgical interns. The incident occurred during routine Monday morning training curriculum, a protected time for the interns when they are only paged about life or death bowel regimens. After a brief demonstration on peg transfers, which entails moving a plastic ring across a board from one rod to another, the interns were sicked on the machines for practice.
After one intern’s particularly aggressive round of flailing on the box, the video monitor suddenly went blank; then, in what is spontaneously being hailed as a both a miracle of modern robotics and a tragedy of modern medical education, the screen instead started showing a running list of vitals and with audible beeps of a heart monitor.
Noting fever, tachycardia, and hypotension, along with a new faint noise that could only be described as gasping breath sounds the intern doctors were quick to act, promptly Googling these symptoms to figure out what to do. The group was thus able to conclude that the box was septic. One of the more hardy interns grabbed two nearby IV bags of saline and shoved these into the device with only a transient improvement in vitals, which then continued to deteriorate. The interns, desperate to “fill the tank,” scrambled around to find a few more bags of fluid with “Yakety Sax” surreptitiously playing in the background. At this point, the training box was asking if it could maybe get transferred to an area of the hospital with access to a Da Vinci robot.
Concerned about job security the interns worked up the courage to call The Chief for help, who was equally impressed by the spontaneous development of synthetic consciousness and the crashing clinical course; she promptly advised them to unplug it and then plug it back in.
