It walks among us!!!
I get that the argument is easy to sell.
That’s why Americans are willing to swallow a hidden cost to thier medical expense. The fact of the matter is that this is a needless 100k addition to a bloated, corrupt industry that in the end is really only a poor facsimile for a real human corpse (which contains plenty of suprises, and actually bring some humanity into play) that people donate for free.
This is why 9 stitches can cost $10,000.
I get that it’s your job to sell this. You do it for your family. The fact is though that we’re all many things at once. This is an evil product produced out of greed and corruption.
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Localhost - wow you are quite the cinic.
Anyway, I am a scientist not a salesman. This technology was developed originally as a stand-in for live animals in the medical device development process and in that role it saves a tremendous amount of both time and money to the developer - making the end product at less risk and expense.
In anatomy training and surgical simulation our product replaces either a disposable (cadaver) or a live human (priceless). It is cheaper in the long run to use an expensive model that lasts forever than a less expensive one that has to constantly be replaced. Just as paper cups and plates are cheaper than real cups and plates but in the long run you save money by investing in something more long-lived that accomplishes the same mission.
Medical care in the USA is so staggeringly expensive because of medical malpractice associated with inadequate training and the tax of too many lawyers looking for a payday. We can only assist with the former not the latter unfortunately.
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I am a cynic, I’ll fess up to that.
And let me clarify that I think this is an incredible feet of engineering and technology. You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished.
However, you’re view of why healthcare is expensive in the US, is as simplistic as my original assertion.
The fact is that problem is much, much deeper than “greedy lawyers” or “expensive, useless technologies.” They are only small parts of the problem. We’re fat and don’t take care of ourselves. We seen healthcare as a right. We’re not willing to make moral decisions. We have people getting into the medically profession because they know they can make $800,000 a year as specialist. Insurance companies have no reason not to pay any amount of money that requested as they make money regardless. Doctor know that if the move thier practice out of a hospital and into a “center of excellence” they can change the paycode of thier insurance bill to make an order of magnitude more. Non-profit hospitals are able to pay their CEOs millions of dollars a year.
The whole system, from patient to doctor to medical scientist, is fucked up.
I know you’re trying to do the right thing here by trying to improve healthcare. I think you know you’ve gotten lost though. You’ve come onto some nothing bbs to argue about the financial value of your product with some dick named “localhost”.
You’re clearly a genius if you had a part in this creation. I beg you to put that ability to better use than some financial justification of a product that puts more lifeless, unfeeling, money-focused corruption into the medical field.
Medicine is about people.
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Yes my analysis was simplistic - as it must be in an online conversation - plus I am not an economist.
I promise I am not lost. Healthcare simulation is even more vital and lifesaving than airline simulation. We are improving all of the time and having a real impact on patient outcomes. Simulation facilitates more effective training and money spent on training is money well spent.
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“… med school pranks, like sneaking them into the alumni dinner in a tuxedo …”
I’d be totally okay with that.
Any suggestions on which university is most likely to do that, so I know which one I should bequeath my body to?
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Anybody else’s first thought when reading this “Your plastic pal who’s fun to be with” ?
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Anecdotal evidence shows that knowledge retention and test scores are greatly improved with SynDaver vs cadaver. We don’t have a peer reviewed study published yet but one is coming from Campbell Medical School.
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Yes, the textbook teaches you to remember the textbook.
The point I was making is that in real clinical/laboratory practice, bodies aren’t like that. Every human is unique; no two kidneys are exactly alike.
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I don’t know whether or not @Syndaver is correct about his technology lowering long-term costs, but you seem to mainly be using him to climb on a soapbox and vent about everything wrong with healthcare except addressing his actual stated reason why he thinks this is a beneficial technology.
Some of your points are accurate - though your deprecation of doctors suggests to me that you don’t really know many personally and that visceral anger they face is a large part of why medical professional shortfalls are on the rise - but your wide-ranging diatribe doesn’t address this particular tech. And you left out the largest contributor to outlandish medical expenses, the publicly-traded pharmaceutical industry with its juggernaut patent lobby.
Eh? Americans are among the only country in the developed world that don’t treat healthcare as a right, which is why the industry is almost totally unregulated as a business.
Also, hospital overcharging has scant to do with the actual costs of medical services and supplies…
You may scoff at my posting Cracked and truTV videos, but the source of the information doesn’t determine their validity, and Adam Ruins Everything at least seems to do more research than most traditional media news outlets these days.
Just so I’m clear, I’m open to being convinced this technology really is, as you claim, evil. But you’re going to have to be more specific than suggesting all medical technology is evil, which seems to be the implication of your initial claim since it all costs something and therefore has some impact of medical costs. You mention 9 stitches costing $10,000, but the stitches didn’t cost the hospital anywhere near that. That’s just what their executives decided to charge because they could get away with it. So the question remains: Is this technology cost effective compared to cadavers? That’s an interesting question and it would be nice to hear arguments against @Syndaver’s assertion that it is. The laundry list of other problems you mention are important, but they don’t answer the question at hand.
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University College London?
Over time, both body and head were swiped as pranks so frequently that at last the college put the head in a safe and made the body only viewable on specific days or by special appointment. That would undoubtedly have disappointed Bentham, but we have to be practical. And they still get some use out of him. It’s said that at special meeting of the college council, the body is wheeled in and recorded as “Jeremy Bentham: present, but not voting.”
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Interesting.
That’s where my sister works. (Not in the medical department, though.)
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The big “problem,” though, is that the UK is bound by laws governing the exhibition of human remains. And so while Bentham and Tchaikowsky knew full well what they were getting into, free and enthusiastic consent may not overcome the well founded presumption against such things.
This is fascinating. I wonder if students will prefer working with the Syndaver or with an actual dead body.
Also, regarding people who will their remains to science, I highly recommend Mary Roach’s thoughtful and funny book “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers”.
You are certainly not a speller.
robots will take even the jobs of our dead.
Your plastic pal who’s fun to be with
Yes. He’s Dave… the Daver. Daver always picks up the keg. Daverrrrr!.
You got me.
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