“Clara, do you ever take confessions?” It was nearing the end of January and Howie was almost ready with the scanner.
“No Abby, I could listen to your confession, but I can’t offer absolution. You’d need a priest for that. Strictly speaking, if you told me your confession, what you tell me wouldn’t have the same legal protection that you’d get from confessing to a priest. Do you have something you’d like to confess, Abby?”
I killed five scumbags when I was freeing women and children from slavery and I don’t feel bad about it at all. No. Saying that out loud wouldn’t go over very well with Sister Clara. Besides, I wasn’t angling for a confession.
“No. I’m not looking to confess anything to you, but I need to talk to you about something in strict confidence. Since the confidentiality rules don’t apply, then I’d like your permission to lie to you instead.”
Sister Clara gave me a long penetrating look. “I can’t say that I’ve ever been asked that before. You’ve certain got my curiosity piqued. I’d have to know why you wanted to lie to me.”
“I don’t want to lie to you, Clara. It’s just that telling you the truth isn’t an option. For now, I have to keep certain things secret, yet I’d like to have your cooperation for a project that I’m working on. To get your cooperation, I’ve made up a story that will make sense to you at first glance, but will totally fall apart if you ask too many questions. Which you will. However, I believe that this project will help people, especially those that come to your clinic, and I’m hoping that you’ll allow me to lie to you so that we can go ahead with the project. I’m hoping that by allowing me to lie to you, you won’t ask those penetrating questions and just accept the project at face value.”
“Wow. There’s quite a lot of convoluted reasoning going on there and yet I think I understand what you’re getting at. Can I hear the lie before I decide?”
“I suppose so. Only I won’t be able to answer any questions about the lie. Ok?”
“Ok. Let me have it.”
I got up and left the room, only to return a second later, with an hyper-cheerful expression on my face. “Clara! I’m so glad I caught you. I have some great news. I have a friend who works at Galt University in Biological Imaging and he’s come up with a new way to use ultrasound to scan people. He’s created a proto-type and he’s been working hard on its development. He thinks his new technology can end up replacing x-rays and MRIs. It uses sound waves so it’s completely safe to use on people. They use ultrasounds on pregnant women and their babies all the time. There’s no radiation whatsoever. In fact, the process is so safe that the technician will be in the room with the patient, often standing right beside the patient. Anyways, I told him about working at your clinic and he wants me to ask you if he could use your clinic as a beta site for testing out the machine. Right now, his algorithm can identify cancers and a few other illnesses, but he needs more data in order to learn to identify other ailments. By scanning the people and later attaching a diagnosis to the scan, no names required, he’s hoping to be able to identify other disorders. As the device is experimental, anything found in the scan would need to be verified with traditional imaging at the hospital. If you’ll agree to be a testing center, he’ll have the unit installed and it won’t cost you anything to get your patients scanned. The only downside to the whole project is that my friend is very paranoid about someone stealing his invention so he’s insisting that I be the only one to run the machine. He’s already trained me in its use and I can run the machine either before or after school or on Saturday mornings, if you want.”
Clara was silent for a long moment and was about to say something, but then stopped herself. She visibly calmed herself and said, “That’s a very interesting story. I have about a thousand questions and I’m not allowed to ask any. However, I won’t even consider approving the use of the equipment if the part about the imaging being safe was a lie.”
“Nice! You just asked a question without asking a question. This one I will answer. The part about the scanning being completely safe is true.”
“In that case, I’ll approve the project with a few provisions. First, I will test the machine’s accuracy with several patients that are known to have cancer and compare the results to their actual scans. Second, the experimental nature of the imaging device must be explained to any patient that it is used on and they must sign a waiver if they are to be scanned. Third, I’ll need to check with the insurance company if we’re allowed to do this. It may be that they won’t allow the technology on the premises, in which case we’ll have to see about putting it just outside the clinic and then you’ll have to check with your insurance company if you can have it on your premises. Finally, I’ll need to see if there are any legal or regulatory issues with using the machine.”
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Yes! “Agreed. I can assure you though that since the machine itself is just a glorified ultrasound machine, you shouldn’t have any problems with insurance or any regulatory agency. The real breakthrough is in the software that reads the images.”
It took another three weeks from that conversation to get the machine installed. The paperwork involved seemed endless. The guy that Howie found to build the machine for me was not happy with having to find creative ways to satisfy all the bureaucrats and I gave him a sizeable bonus for his trouble.
The ultrasound machine was installed in the last room of the clinic. It consisted of a boxy structure that was placed in one of the corners and it had four thick wires attached to it that terminated in panels that were placed in the center of each wall. The three-by-three foot panels were covered in acoustical tile, except at the center where there was a cut-out for a red piece of glass that would light up when the scanning was activated. It looked really cool and super-techy. Just what the fake doctor ordered!
For her initial testing of the device, Sister Clara had personally called in eight patients to participate. All of them had cancer. In order to make sure that I couldn’t bias any of the results, she didn’t let me see their files. I suggested that we also pick eight patients who didn’t have cancer as a control group and Sister Clara agreed. I’m not sure what we were controlling for in this case, but I wanted to get that retired cop, Nathan, in for a scan and using the term ‘control group’ sounded sufficiently science based to get away without further questioning. All science needs a control group or it’s not real science. Everyone knows that.
The extra three weeks of paperwork did have one positive note. I had a lot of time to practice with the body scanning software and it got to the point where it would only take me a minute to input the data in a way that would seem like the software was doing all the work. Basically, I cheated. I didn’t wait until the patient was in the room to start the work. I’d simply fill in the data while they filled in the forms and signing the waiver. If I needed more time, I’d just spend a minute ‘calibrating’ the machine. Doing the work beforehand allowed me to show the patient, and Sister Clara, the image immediately after I turned off the scanning unit.
Compared to other imaging technologies, this one provided an image that was easy for anyone to understand. The main reason for that is that the image simply showed the shape of the cancer inside a generic male or female body. The shape could be seen in 2D or 3D and had very specific measurements listed at the bottom of the image. If the cancer surrounded a blood vessel, then the picture would show that. If the cancer was embedded in the brain, then the image showed that. You didn’t have to try to interpret shadowy things inside the body to understand these images.
The ability to print out the images right after I turned off the scanning and hand the image to Clara for review made the system seem almost magical. It took less than half an hour to run through all sixteen patients and Clara and I sat down to review them. Of the eight cancer patients, seven had scans that matched their medical files. The eighth patient scan showed that the cancer had metastasized from her breast and was now in her liver. The liver cancer was still very small and catching it this early was very lucky. It also meant that the current treatment wasn’t working and the doctors needed to get more aggressive with her treatment. I suspected that once the findings of the experimental scanning were corroborated by the hospital, the patient would be quickly scheduled for surgery.
Although the findings were unfortunate for that eighth patient, they were not unexpected. Cancer often metastasizes. However, Clara was very surprised at Nathan’s results. With no symptoms and no family history of lung cancer, it was completely unexpected and she was very careful to tell him that the scan was still experimental and that he should verify the information by getting a scan of his lungs done at the hospital. Nathan left the clinic in stunned disbelief, but he assured Clara that he would get another scan immediately.
I let out a sigh of relief. It had worked. For the past year I’d always had this worry at the back of my mind of what I’d do if I scanned someone and found out they had cancer or something else that was life threatening. I didn’t want to reveal my abilities to the world, yet I couldn’t live with myself if I let someone die in order to keep my secret. With this ‘experimental imaging’ I could pass of my extraordinary ability as another modern-day technological miracle and no one would be the wiser.
At least that’s what I thought at the time.