 Doctors train on virtual patients
实习医生出诊虚拟病人当先
The days of new doctors practicing on real patients may be numbered. Today, many doctors in training are making their first diagnoses - and their first mistakes - on plastic, wires and computer circuits ...
The days of new doctors practicing on real patients may be numbered. Today, many doctors in training are making their first diagnoses - and their first mistakes - on plastic, wires and computer circuits rather than flesh and blood.
These virtual patients come in different shapes and sizes, much like the real ones.
Some are almost lifelike mannequins with plastic ears and hair, veins that can be injected, eyes that can move and interchangeable genitals. They can't be hurt or killed, even though they have a pulse, a beating heart and lungs that breathe. The most sophisticated can be programmed to simulate every imaginable medical crisis and then respond as a doctor works on the "patient."
Other, virtual reality-type simulators combine video or computer images with tactile feedback. Trainees insert needles or surgical tools into a plastic box whose innards give the sensation of cutting flesh or pushing through body parts such as the throat or colon. A video screen shows what a doctor would watch during the procedure, such as ultrasound images.
The technology is barely 10 years old, and already simulators are widely used for training U.S. military medics and nurses and medical technicians at many community colleges. At least half of the nation's 120 medical schools already use simulators to teach students and residents, or graduates completing training at hospitals.
Medical school professors say simulators help their students and residents build confidence and make mistakes - before they treat real patients.
"It's an extraordinary advantage," said Dr. Adam I. Levine, director of the anesthesiology residency program at one medical school in New York. "If you have to think through the problem yourself and get your answer, you learn it better."
Students sometimes get so caught up in a training scenario that they are upset if a monitor shows the patient has died. One anesthesiology resident who had sedated a "patient" for surgery, then couldn't insert a breathing tube, crazily resorted to mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Levine recalled.
Studies have shown that surgical residents trained on simulators made fewer errors and operated more quickly than those who got the traditional "See one, do one, teach one" training, in which residents observe experienced doctors, do procedures under supervision and then independently, and later train others.
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numbered [adj] 时日无多的
diagnose [n] 诊断
mannequin [n] 人体模型
genital [n] 生殖器
tactile [adj] 有触觉的
innards [n] 内脏
anesthesiology [n] 麻醉学
resident [n] 住院医生
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation [n] 人工呼吸
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