“BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!” DELLilah tiredly turned over to unplug her chord from her nightstand charger. The red blinking words that read “Full Charge” lit up the dark room. She pressed a button located on her forearm to activate her daily itinerary, put on her scrubs, and hustled out the door. It was silent in the city at four am, too quiet for DELLilah who was used to a busy loud hospital for eight hours a day. She decided to turn on the radio in her car. “Now words from your leader, President Hector,” “starting today we are ridding the world of impurities for a stronger, more united society! All chronic mental, and physical disorders are banned! Those with such disorders will be sent into isolation for therapy, release will be determined based on progression.” DELLilah froze. “That’s enough,” she turned off the radio and continued her commute in silence. “It feels like every day this man is coming for innocent people, people I work with, walk past, shop from. It needs to be stopped, soon there will be no one left in this world.”
When DELLilah got into work one of her co-workers rushed up to her. “DELLilah, a mother just came in with her infant daughter for a routine checkup, can you please attend to them? I have to take this call.” “Sure, what room are they in,” said DELLilah, “three hundred five, Thank you!” DELLilah walked over to the room to see a mother coddling a small infant. The mother was crying uncontrollably. DELLilah didn’t know why the mother was crying, so she discreetly did a full body scan on both the mother and baby. The only thing she found was that the mother’s heart rate was high but not life threatening, and the baby had a condition called Down Syndrome, nothing she hadn’t seen before. “Hello, you must be Jane,” DELLilah said to the mother. “And this must be little Bella,” DELLilah said, caressing the small infant’s arm. “Doctor, please treat Bella, I need her to be cured! They are making rounds to everyone’s house tonight and I don’t have long before they take my sweet Bella away from me!” DELLilah froze, both Bella and Jane’s scans came back normal, and Bella’s condition was not life threatening DELLilah had seen many babies come into the hospital with Down Syndrome. She started to wonder if her system had a virus and wasn’t performing diagnosis accurately. “Doctor, President Hector is going to take my baby and put her in isolation. Bella has a mental and physical disability!” DELLilah quickly remembered the announcement she heard on the radio this morning. She was conflicted. If she gave anything to Jane to help her and got caught, she would be sent away for life. “Jane I am afraid I can’t treat Bella, there is no cure for Down Syndrome, is there any way you can hide her without them hearing her?” “No” said Jane, “I live in a thin-walled apartment, all my neighbors have heard her cry. She always cries when I’m not with her. When they come storming in making loud noises, she will cry. I don’t know what I am going to do!” DELLilah felt defeated. “Thanks for trying to help, I should go now, I have to think of something” said Jane, wiping the tears from her eyes. “My first patient of the day is leaving this hospital hopeless, and there is nothing i can do about it” DELLilah thought while walking out of the room. She rushed into the bathroom and quickly pulled out her emotion chip. “I can’t be feeling this sadness, anger, or any stupid human emotion. It is time to get work done.”
“Code green, code green please get to your assigned departments this is not a drill, code green, code green!” DELLilah quickly searched up code green in her internal dictionary. Her internal dictionary is what got her through med school, she never had to memorize information a day in her life; it was just placed in her storage after hearing professor’s lecture. Code green was the code for when the world leader was in serious condition and needed to be admitted to the hospital. DELLilah paused, “does this mean president Hector is coming to this hospital right now?” She rushed up to the Intensive care unit and waited to be instructed by her manager. DELLilah had a gut feeling she would be assigned to be Hector’s doctor but tried to deny it. Every time there is a patient in serious condition DELLilah was always assigned to them and never failed to diagnose and cure them thanks to her Artificial Intelligence. “DELLilah, you will be Hector’s doctor, Mary you and Ted will be his nurses” DELLilah drowned out the rest of her manager’s voice. She was too stunned to move. “DELLilah let’s go! EMS predicted his ETA is in 2 minutes, go set up!” She rushed into the room and set up the monitors that Hector would be hooked up to. Just then a stretcher busted through the double doors and there layed President Hector yelling and cussing out all the nurses and EMTs pushing him in. While the nurses hooked him up to the monitors and administered an IV, DELLilah performed her full body scan. “Body temperature one hundred and four point three degrees Fahrenheit, heart in tachycardia, brain swelling in frontal and parietal lobes, and finally the diagnosis, Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis caused by the parasite Naegleria Fowleri. DELLilah had never treated this parasite before so she searched her internal dictionary for information. She found that this parasite was very rare and only three people have ever recovered from it. She ran out of the room to tell her co-workers what she believed Hector had. They were all confused and went to find more information. Shortly word spread that President Hector will likely die from this parasite. All the nurses and doctors found that there was no cure and the best thing to do was to induce a coma and let him pass without pain.
DELLilah sat in her office while the nurses induced the coma and searched her internal dictionary for answers. “How to treat Naegleria Fowleri” she voiced into the search bar. “Treat with amphotericin B, fluconazole, miltefosine, rifampin, azithromycin, and dexamethasone within thirty-six hours. Administer therapeutic hypothermia for brain swelling.” This all made sense to her, the drugs would kill the parasite and cure Hector. Her records showed that he had only been exposed to the parasite for thirty-two hours and there was still time to cure him. Just as she was about to get up out of her chair, she glanced out the window and saw Jane from earlier that morning. Jane was holding Bella in a tightly wrapped blanket and rushing up her apartment steps. She watched a man in a uniform jot down her address and smirk at his partner. DELLilah knew she would never see Bella again if Hector survived. DELLilah was once again conflicted, if Hector was not administered the lifesaving drugs within thirty-six hours he would die. Was it ethical to not save his life? Would everyone know she didn’t save him on purpose? She didn’t know what to do. “Should I treat the world’s evil leader or let him die?” she voiced into her search bar. No results came up. “Should I treat him as if he were any kind patient coming into my office seeking medical attention, or let him die and save the world,” she said into her search bar. Again, no results. Just then one of her nurses barged in, “DELLilah Hector won’t stay in a coma, it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen! No matter what we do he always wakes up and complains how bad the pain is in his head” the nurse exclaimed. “I know how to treat him. I will be right there” said DELLilah.
DELLilah walked into the room and ordered the nurses to get an ice bath ready. The monitors were beeping so loud and sending out so many signals DELLilah was worried it would interfere with her own connection. “The cold will make his brain swelling go down,” she said. She reached for the IV and paused. After thinking about Jane and Bella she administered dexamethasone. The nurses moved him into an ice bath and soon Hector was pain free. After a few hours symptom free Hector was released from the hospital back to his mansion where he was ordered steroids and given instructions to his home nurses for his care. DELLilah walked into the locker room where she got her belongings and headed to her car. She was reluctant to turn on the radio but couldn’t stand the silence after her hard day at work. “News just in, President Hector reportedly died after a battle with a rare brain eating parasite called Naegleria Fowleri at 3:05 pm today, all ordered mandates of the now old government will be discarded, we are free!” DELLilah couldn’t believe it, not only is Hector gone, but everyone is also free and back to a safe government! There was still a bit of guilt inside DELLilah as she had never intentionally refused to save one of her patients. As DELLilah was walking into her house she saw Jane pushing Bella on a swing at the park. Bella was giggling and Jane was smiling at her. DELLilah was now secure in her choice, and in her life as a secret robot doctor.
Works Cited
ABCNews. Creators of Famous Sophia Robot Reveal AI Robotics for Children, Elderly | Nightline. ABC News Network, https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/creators-famous-sophia-robot-reveal-ai-robotics-children-78748963. Accessed 20 Oct. 2022.
My story revolves around technology that can diagnose and treat people within seconds. Although this type of technology does not exist, people have created robots that are able to read heart rates and body temperatures. I watched a video on a robot named Grace who is a robot nurse able to read heart rates and body temperatures through a sensor on her “sternum”. Grace was designed for patients such as the elderly who are limited to human contact due to their conditions. My takeaway here is that robots are being produced and studied to do certain things like Grace is in health care.
“Mount Rushmore.” The Good Doctor, created by David Shore, Season 1, Episode 1, Sony Pictures and ABC Signature. 2017.
I am basing my main character after Dr. Shaun Murphy, the main character in the TV show The Good Doctor. Dr. Murphy is an individual with autism and is extremely smart. He can observe a few symptoms from a patient and diagnose them accordingly. Like my character DELLilah, Dr. Murphy is almost never wrong in his diagnoses and undergoes many challenges. While being a secret robot doctor and a person with a disability are two completely different challenges, DELLilah will struggle with internal conflict such as Dr. Murphy does in the beginning where he is not taken seriously because of his autism. Although my character is a robot using AI, DELLilah is much like Dr. Murphy in the sense that she is very smart due to her AI.
DrLarrySantora. “A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the Intensive Care Unit.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Feb. 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaktTGyh6ZE. Accessed 20 Oct. 2022.
My setting takes place mostly in the hospital DELLilah works at. Although I am a nursing major and have been to the hospital for many fractured/sprained limbs, I wasn’t sure what a real hospital setting and workflow looked like so I watched a video tour of the intensive care unit at St. Joseph’s Hospital. In the video Dr. Joseph Preston explains that the ICU is for patients who need continuous monitoring and care. This is where I plan to place DELLilah because doctors who work in the ICU always need to be on top of things and know what to do in extreme situations. The evil leader in my story, Dr. Hector, will be placed in the ICU because of his extreme state. In one of the rooms of the ICU I noticed lots of monitors and machines where medication can be given. I plan to use imagery of the monitors in my story to show a scene where DELLilah is conflicted to give the lifesaving drug to Dr. Hector or a symptom relieving drug through the IV machine.