Planning a final exercise

[xp-friedlander.livejournal.com]

Sharon meets with Scott and Garrison to plan the final exercise of her Advanced First Aid Course.

"One thing. This place has way too many closets and cupboards." Sharon commented as she leaned on the door still of Scott's office. "Did find what I was looking for though."

"Really? Where'd you find it? I was sure that someone had thrown them out," Scott inquired with genuine curiosity as he gestured Sharon into his office and pointed her at one of the chairs on the other side of his desk.

"Well... clearly someone in the history of the Medlab is a packrat. Five trauma dummies, still in good condition." Sharon commented as she took her chair. "They will need some cleaning and minor fixes, but that I can do. Garrison not here yet?"

"I think he had a few things to take care of, work never stops as much as we want it to," Scott allowed, "you know how it is, you think you've got it all put away then one more thing just ends up on your desk which you have to take care of before you can head away."

"That is the case everywhere." Sharon replied, before leaning down an grabbing a folder she had brought with her. "I made some sketches. Maybe you want to take a look while we wait for Garrison to come?"

As if on cue, he walked on, holding a large stack of printouts. "You know what isn't fun? Defragging the damn DR. This is the list of potential conflicts for just the holoprojecter interfaces."

"Why do you think I keep begging off the maintenance checks in there?" Scott asked with a smile nodding at Garrison, "speak of the devil and he will appear." Scott pulled Sharon's sketches towards him spreading them out over the desk, "these don't look too bad I don't think."

"I didn't want to make things over complicated, but at the same time I do want to make sure they can do what they do under circumstances outside the classroom." Sharon explained as she zoomed in on one of the sketches. "This one here is based on the road side crash we helped out with over a year ago."

"It's not the easiest things to model." Garrison huffed a little. "It's tough to make it realistic."

"No," Scott agreed, "but how realistic does it need to be? We can create a similar environment, just not exactly what they'd see in the real world. The pressures would be similar thought."

"Doesn't have to be fully realistic." Sharon agreed easily. "The important thing is that they can use what they learn in other places then a fully lighted class room. I remember my medic training in the army... learned the most during my Situational Training Exercises..."

"The circumstances aren't that difficult. The problem is the dummies themselves. Projecting on to them is pretty tough, and even if everything is spot on, working on dummies is going to undercut a lot of the anticipated pressure."

Scott nodded slowly, "That's a good point...what kind of injuries are you considering?" he asked, "We can project into the robots we use. Maybe we can try making a hybrid. IT'd look accurate then even if it doesn't feel that way."

"I don't think you have to project on the dummies." Sharon objected. "They are made to practice on and have parts to simulate different injuries. It's mostly the surrounding that have to be right."

"You might want to ramp up the atmospheric conditions if you want to put stress on them." Kane drummed his fingers on the table. "Inclement weather, night or poor lighting... the car crash might work best. Traffic whipping by with headlights flashing, hard rain coming down."

He paused and grinned. "I could even have the car on fire if you really want to push them."

Scott grinned, "We could could even make it a little more interesting make it a realistic triage situation, maybe have them have to figure out how to get the victims to safety, who should be moved and who they should leave in one place."

"No..." Sharon shook her head. "I want them to focus on the first aid first. Later on, something like that would be good, but first the focus must me on using their new skills. Realistic, but not overcomplicated at first."

"I'm pretty sure that real life is fairly complex," Scott pointed out with a teasing smile, "but I think we can give them what you need pretty easily. Something that can distract them while they're working on the dummies if they let it happen."

"Look, we need to know the envelope you want. Because if it's just about the forms, we can host it on the campus grounds."

Sharon shook her head. "I thought about that. But that makes the place too safe. People know it. I need the unknown, with at least some stress..."

"Why don't we stick with distractions; lights, sound, atmosphere. Makes them focus and how to deal with stabilizing and prepping the victim to be moved. That works?"

"Fine with me." Sharon nodded. "That was the basics of what I was looking for."

"We can probably throw something together for you then," Scott told her exchanging a look with Garrison, "give us a few days and we should have a first draft for your approval."

"Sounds good." Sharon nodded. "Thanks."