What could be better than a game about being a med student, right? The hostility of the first character in the game is perfect. That is clearly a post-call medicine R2 who views medical students as a hindrance.
Don’t miss out on their definition of ‘vomiting’.
It initially appeared that the developers failed to include two years of classroom lectures. I soon realized that they captured the essence of the overwhelming quantities of data by including ample jargon-filled text. I like that you can click jargon to translate from ’special doctor words’ such as ‘diaphoresis’ to English such as ’sweating.’ The links allow for nice control over the pace of learning, and that saves the game in my opinion.
I’m actually eager to play more. What features of medical education will appear next? (Warning: sarcasm paragraph follows.)
They’ve foreshadowed that I might get sued for malpractice at some point. That’s a good bet because almost all American doctors will be sued, I think. Will they capture the six-figure loan that most doctors have at graduation? Will they portray the exhaustion 10-20 residency interviews spread across the country and spread across time mostly at the convenience of the hospitals? Note that all interview flights, hotels, and cars require more loans? Will they attempt to explain the residency match system, non-negotiable salary, mandatory employment contract, and lack of relocation costs? That’s correct – more loans. Will they bore the user with a simulated eleven years to be a pediatric neurosurgeon? That’s four years of undergraduate, four of medical, six of neurosurgery, and one to add ‘pediatric’ to the title. I’ll do the math for you. If you graduate high school at 18 and want to be a pediatric neurosurgeon, you will get your first job at age 33 at the earliest.
The game does not portray the medical education system accurately, but that’s not the point of the game. I do not fault it for not teaching outsiders about the faults of medical education or of the medical industry; there are other places for that sort of dialog. The game educates the public and servers as a serious game for purely educational purposes.
I applaud it for that public service.
[Hat tip to Ben Sawyer and Kongregate's Facebook application.]
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