VR Health Services accounted for the second of the two February interruptions to my finely tuned schedule. This one occurred a few days after I got back from placing the trackers on the children. Harry had invited VR Health Services to come and give a presentation of our system to his doctors, residents, and students. To accommodate everyone, he’d arranged for us to use one of the larger lecture halls with stadium style seating.
Jenny and the teams had worked tirelessly for the past several weeks on their presentation and I was glad that I only had to demonstrate the surgical techniques. Jenny would be giving the briefing and we would both take questions afterwards.
Harry and his staff had done a phenomenal job in coordinating schedules because all of the seats were filled and we even had people standing in at the back and a few students sitting in the aisles. Jenny walked on the stage, her height and powerful build gaining everyone’s attention, and began talking about some of the issues that medical students, residents and even doctors faced in developing their skills using modern simulation devices and software. She showed pictures of the various machines currently in use and went over their features and limitations. Versatility and realism were the two major drawbacks and she quickly moved on to how VR Health Systems was the solution.
Jenny took the audience through her PowerPoint slides and a short video before we got to the demonstration portion of the presentation. However, when she got to the part where she was supposed to ask for volunteers, she instead said, “I was going to ask for volunteers for the next portion, but your dean had other plans and has graciously provided us with ready victims…I mean willing participants.” Jenny’s fake slip of the tongue was met with the appropriate laughter from the audience before she continues. “With us today are doctors from the prestigious Mercy Hospital in Washington, DC. Dr. Felicia Meyers, head administrator of the hospital, Dr. Rebeccah Meyers, General Surgeon, and Lilly Meyers, first-year medical student.”
I looked out at the crowd and saw the three women getting up and making their way to the front. Next to their now empty seats, I saw Ethan and Mark applauding with everyone else. What the hell was going on? Why hadn’t anyone told me about all this? It’s not like I was the owner of the company or anything like that.
As the ladies came onto the stage, I looked at Jenny and she gave me a sheepish smile. She mouthed the word ‘sorry’ only she didn’t seem it at all. It was one of those ‘sorry, not sorry’ kind of things. Jenny continued with the planned presentation and we had Lilly start off. We outfitted her in a VR rig and I started taking her through the features that would serve her well in her first years of medical school. It was very similar to what I’d shown Eva and James only a few months ago, except with a lot more systems and features. Over the next fifteen minutes, I showed the audience how useful the system could be for medical students and I even walked Lilly through a simple appendectomy and let her try it out by herself. When she didn’t end up killing the patient, she let out a triumphant ‘Yes!!!’ and the audience, watching it all on the big screen, laughed and cheered her success.
“Oh my God. I want one of these! That felt so real. I’m all sweaty and I feel like I ran a mile. I was so worried that I was going to kill that kid.” Lilly was glowing with excitement and the audience murmured appreciatively.
I took the opportunity to show off another feature and explained, “That was level one and it’s designed to take a medical student through a textbook version of the surgery. Levels two, three and four each feature the same surgery, but things are programmed to get progressively harder as more and more complications arise. The appendix can rupture before you get it out or the patient can start having a heart attack during the operations. Level five, what the programmers have taken to calling the Kobayashi Maru, because it’s almost impossible to save the patient, is the most challenging and can have things like a hospital wide power-failure with a malfunctioning back-up, or the patient is changed from this child to a ninety-five-year-old woman with a weak heart.”
“The higher levels are locked out, until the student or doctor has achieved a consistently high enough score to move on. Another great feature of the software is that it can help medical students learn to work with real views of the internal structure of the body, and not simple illustrations. Even cadavers don’t prepare you sufficiently, as there’s are no fluids running through them. Our VR body is an exact recreation of the human body, along with all it’s fluids. While it doesn’t go down to the cellular level yet, we are working on that. We’re hoping that in the next few years, we’ll be able to show students and doctors exactly what happens to the body when they prescribe different medications and what happens when the wrong medication is taken.”
Lilly went back to her mother and Rebeccah soon took her place. Jenny continued with the presentation and described how a surgeon could preplan a difficult or time-sensitive surgery with his or her team and do full run-through to make sure that everyone knew their part. I helped Rebeccah into her VR rig and walked her through all the controls. Once she was comfortable with the few differences from reality that we couldn’t yet overcome, I set her up with a few minor surgeries to perform, varying the difficulty between level one and level three.
“Now’s where we put Dr. Meyer on the spot. How well can she do against our benchmark? Remember, once the system is set up, each time you log on and perform a surgery, you’ll be measured against the best in the world. The rankings will be available for all to see. We want everyone to take these seriously and hope that hospitals will use our system scores to evaluate their residency candidates or surgical hires. With this in mind, Dr. Meyer, are you willing to give it a shot and solo your first VR surgery?”
Rebeccah was built for competition and yelled out, “Bring it on!” The crown cheered and a few of them even stomped their feet. Who knew doctors could be so rowdy? Jenny called for quiet and over the next ten minutes, Rebeccah stabilized and repaired a gun-shot wound to the upper chest. Her technique was excellent.
As Rebeccah returned the sensored surgical instruments to the tray, her score flashed on the screen. Ninety-one percent. The crowd applauded enthusiastically. Rebeccah however, was not pleased.
“What is the scoring based on?”, she challenged.
“In this case, the duration of the surgery, amount of blood loss, consumable usage, and the number of movements performed to complete the surgery. Obviously, the outcome of the patient is a priority as well. There are other performance measures that are incorporated, but those are the main ones.”
“Who has the top score?”
Jenny looked at her for a few heartbeats and said, “Abby does. Until now, she’s the only person who’s run these simulations. She modeled all the surgeries for our programmers.”
Rebeccah turned to me and paled a bit. “You know all the surgeries? The list must have over fifty surgeries on it.”
“Eighty-four, so far. Our goal is to have the ten most common surgeries in each of fourteen main specialties before we move on to full commercialization. We expect to have it ready by the end of the summer.”
Moving the system controls, Rebeccah scanned through the list of surgeries and stopped at hernia repair. “I’ve done this surgery hundreds of times in real life. You’re obviously more experienced with this VR system. Let’s see how we do against each other.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
I muted our mikes and said, “What? Now? Rebeccah, there’s no need to do this.”
“There is. Mother arranged for us to come here today. This is her way of finalizing my bet with Ethan.”
Oh shit. I really didn’t want to have to do this, much less in front of an audience. Jenny had outed me as the one who’d programmed all of our techniques into the system. If I lost, then our system would come into question. I need to beat Rebeccah, but I didn’t want to hurt her reputation.
“We can do it right after the presentation. In private.”
“Do your best, Abby. I sure will.” With that she turned on her mike and said, “I challenge Abby to a duel!” and she mimed slapping me with an invisible glove.
I had no choice but to respond with a big grin on my face, “To the death!”, and it was on.
This time, we each had our own patient. They were the exact same patient with the exact same hernia and we would both use the Lichtenstein open mesh technique. We both verified our trays and signaled when we were ready. Jenny did a countdown and the system started. For the next twenty-four minutes, I was in the zone. I had decided before the start that I would focus on my own work and not try to spy on her hand movements. I didn’t want to have any unfair advantage over her. It must have been surreal for the spectators to see the two of us hunched over nothing and moving our hands in short, quick movements, while on the screen, they could see the bodies that we were working on.
I put down my instruments and signaled the completion of the surgery. Rebeccah was still working on her patient and I looked up to the screen to see her suturing up her patient and put down her instruments. A few moments later, the score screen came on. Ninety-seven to One hundred and four.
Jenny explained to the crowd, “The scores are based on the previous best metrics. In this case, Abby beat her previous best and next time this surgery will be the one to beat.”
Rebeccah and I shook hands and the crown gave us a standing ovation. I wanted to talk to Rebeccah some more, but Jenny continued with the presentation, this time bringing in Felicia to work with our clinical care model. This time, the VR showed the crowd a typical doctor’s office and it had Felicia meet with patients and diagnose them based on their systems. I worked with Felicia and showed her how she could draw blood from the patient and order tests to be taken. Within moments, Felicia was able to see the results of the blood tests and x-rays and make her final diagnosis. For her first patient, it was a straightforward cold. Her second had cancer and she had to figure it out. To her credit, she followed the clues that we’d left and successfully diagnosed the patient.
Jenny finished up the presentation and we took questions for the next half hour before Harry came on stage and thanked us for the excellent presentation. He announced to the crowd that Galt University Hospital and the Thomas Hendricks School of Medicine would be the first in the world to have access to this new technology and he hoped that our doctors and students would set the high scores that all other schools would fail to beat. The crowd cheered again and I felt like I was at a high-school football rally.
Shortly after, the crowd dispersed, leaving only a few handfuls of doctors who wanted to try the system for themselves and couldn’t wait the few months. Harry gave us the ok and we gave them each a short surgery to try. Each of them was amazed at the realism and shook my hand and told me what an excellent job I’d done.
“You and Jenny knocked that out of the park, Abby. I think this is the first time that I’ll be introducing something new without having half the medical faculty screaming at me that I’m wasting their precious budget. Being the first medical school to have this system is going to make me the envy of all the deans.” Harry was beaming and as I looked at him, I could see that he had lost more weight. Not only did he look healthier, he looked years younger than when he’d been over for supper eight or nine months ago.
Felicia showed up at our side and said, “You know, Harry, that if you don’t snap her up for your medical school, then someone else will and they’ll get to say that she went to medical school there.”
“She’s already refused me, repeatedly Felicia.”
Felicia gave me a questioning look. I sighed and explained again, “I won’t spend ten years learning to do what I can already do now.”
“Then how do you plan on practicing medicine? Surely you won’t let your skills go to waste.” She protested.
I gave her a smile. “I’m thinking of becoming one of those mob doctors, working under the table in hidden surgery rooms with dim lighting and antiquated metal tables.”
Felicia was not amused. “Harry! Do something about her. You can’t let her skills go to waste. Find a way to get her certified. She’s earned it. Anyone that can take Rebeccah down a peg by outperforming her in surgery deserves special consideration.”
Harry agreed and said he’d see what options he had.
While the two of them thrashed out ideas for my future, Ethan, Mark, Rebeccah and Lilly came up on stage. Mark came up and gave me a proper boyfriend greeting and after a few seconds Lilly suggested that we get a room. We ignored her for a few more seconds just for spite. Well, it was also very nice.
After the kiss, I stepped back from Mark and poked him gently in the chest. “What’s with the ambush, Mark? Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming and bringing guests?”
“Don’t blame me. This is a Jake thing. I only found out this morning that I was picking up this lot in Washington and heading over here. From what I’ve pieced together, Harry mentioned this presentation to Jake and Jake called Felicia. Felicia called Ethan and they’re the ones who set up this ambush.”
I turned to Ethan, questions dancing in my eyes. He said, “I was going to let the bet go. It was Felicia who insisted that we needed to see it through. She said something about closure and about Rebeccah needing to respect my judgement.”
“Everything with mother is a lesson and I’ve learned this one. When it comes to understanding and dealing with people, Ethan’s instincts are better than mine and I should listen to him. It’s a good lesson, but it leaves me with a big problem. I have no idea what I’m going to live on for the next twelve months. I’ve never been a good saver.” Rebeccah sighed heavily and batted her eyelashes at Ethan. She was clearly hinting that Ethan could help her out.
“I suppose I could give you a loan. Just to help you out. How does eighteen percent interest sound?” Ethan was grinning at his own offer, until Rebeccah elbowed him in the ribs.
“It sounds like you’ll be spending some time in a hospital very soon.”
“I suppose that you could work off some of the interest.” Ethan was leering this time and Lilly made gagging sounds.
“That is so gross. Seriously? I don’t need to hear that stuff about my sister.”
“You sure you can handle being a doctor, Lilly? I can just see you talking to your pregnant patient and saying, “Oh my God! You let him touch you? Down there? Ewww. Gross!” Ethan’s voice had changed to a high falsetto in a bad imitation of Lilly’s voice.
Rebeccah, Mark and I couldn’t hold in our laughter and Lilly turned red with embarrassment. She also managed to elbow Ethan on the other side of his ribs.
“Sisters! Sheesh.” Ethan exclaimed while rubbing both sides of his ribs. The sisters just looked at each other and high-fived.
“I have another option for you, Rebeccah. You could consult with VR Health and do the same type of work that I’m doing. I can’t pay you the massive salary that you’re making at your hospital, but depending on how much time you can put in, you should have enough to pay your share of the rent and be able to take your man out for a bite to eat every now and then. The best part is that working with the programmers will make you questions every aspect of your surgical technique and it should make you an even better doctor. You’ll also be the standard for every surgery that your model for the programmers. Every surgeon will have to work to measure up to you.”
“I think I like that a lot. Is there enough work for the two of us?”
“More than enough. I have grand plans for this system, Rebeccah. I’m not sure if this system can ever be finished. Besides, I have a specific project that I think you’d be great for. It won’t be ready to start until this fall, though. In the meantime, you can work on modelling some surgeries and mastering the system.”
“In that case, I accept.” Rebeccah and I shook hands on it while Ethan murmured aloud about my stealing his business. We ignored his complaints and Mark invited us all out for dinner.
“Uhm, Mark? It’s only three o’clock.” Lilly reminded him.
“Call it lunner, then, or maybe dinch. It doesn’t matter. I’m hungry.” Mark extended the invitation to Harry, Felicia and Jenny, and soon we were off to the Olive Garden. It’s good when the guy buying dinner is your boyfriend and knows exactly what you want.
As we packed up the VR gear and got ready to leave, I managed to take Ethan aside for a minute and let him know that I had a few extra diamonds laying around, just in case he happened to be looking for one for Rebeccah. He turned a few shades redder and I had my answer.