Your dummy or your life: Training medics of the future with the tech of today

This may be perhaps the most expensive “Operation” board game ever. Meet ADAM-X from Medical-X, a medical dummy designed to provide a highly realistic training experience for medical professionals. This patient simulator — among one of the more eyebrow-raising exhibits at CES 2024 earlier this month — offers a wide variety of medical training exercises, such as injecting an IV, using a defibrillator, and of course, performing CPR.

From the skeleton to the anatomical structure, its distinguishing feature is … that it’s hard to distinguish from a real human body, as it provides reactive feedback based on the patient’s needs and the medical procedures being practiced.

For example, the ADAM-X’s respiratory tract has fully independent right and left lungs. The ventilation of the lungs creates highly accurate sounds of breathing and this feature allows the simulator to present the changes that hypoxemia or tachycardia, and many other respiratory conditions, have on a human body.

The model features realistic skeletal and anatomical structure, including distinctive characteristics and features such as realistic skin (and comes in different skin tones), pupils that are able to react to light, a tongue that can swell, and simulated circulating blood. 

This level of extreme detail is intended to prepare medical trainees more effectively in accurate-medical situations, offering a more immersive experience.

Adding to its realism, the ADAM-X also includes accessories like administrable medications, a blood pressure cuff, a defibrillator adaptor (that can even generate electric signals that coordinate with a simulated patient monitor) and a stethoscope that can trace body sounds like heart, breathing and bowel sounds. 

And of course, an artificial body calls for artificial intelligence

The model will soon have a ChatGPT-like capabilities, aimed to assist training medics more directly in specific emergencies. It’s expected that this function will add AI-built scenarios to the training, allowing medical practitioners to customize the situations and even emulating responses coming from the patient itself to enhance the accuracy of the practices and its results.

ADAM-X comes in a variety of models, from the more basic Xact to the Xtreme, with bilateral carotid, brachial and radial pulses, flesh that can turn blue, yellow, red or pale, depending on the symptoms the trainers want to present, and the ability to mimic a seizure.