Medicine has come a long way since leeches and eye of newt… or has it?
Simon and Eugene discuss the Iron Doctor.
Episode Synopsis:
In a hospital, George, an old man is ecstatically happy. He’s just received word that his first great-grandchild has been born and has been named after him. Better still, the child will be brought to see him next week. It is a gleaming ray of joy and hope for the old man.
Pity he won’t live to see his grandchild as it is his sudden, somewhat mysterious death that kicks off the events of this story. Alas, George, we hardly knew you.
Dr. Quist, along with several other VIPs happen to be touring the hospital about the time George dies. Quist and the others are being shown the hospital’s Computer Therapeutic Unit: A computerized patient monitoring and treatment system that has produced some amazing results – extending the duration and quality of the lives of terminal patients by months in some cases. George was one such case.
Patients are hooked up to the computer, which monitors their condition continuously, running their readings through massive databases, making diagnoses, adjusting treatment equipment hooked up to the patients and alerting doctors or nurses to conditions that need attention.
It’s an amazing system with an impressive success rate. Even Dr. Carson, the attending physician in the unit has to agree. Nonetheless, he has misgivings. It’s still not a human and it is potentially making life or death decisions on behalf of the patients.
Carson suspects that the computer is discontinuing active treatment on the patients when it decides the costs outweighs the benefits. The computer does make these recommendations, but an oversight committee acts upon them. In every case, the committee has overridden the computer’s recommendations.
When Whitaker, the administrator, rejects Carson’s notion, Carson takes them too Doomwatch. He has no proof, so Quist sends him packing.
And then, he immediately assigns his team to investigate, anyway, headed by Dr. Chantry who interviews Whittaker.
Whittaker, proud of his successes, is somewhat helpful, but resists full cooperation. Meanwhile, another patient dies when the computer stops administering to him.
Carson, within earshot of the computer’s monitoring, demands that Whittaker stop the computer and investigate. Instead, he suspends Carson effective at midnight tonight.
Carson tries to convince the sister to abscond with the patient data for one of the fatalities and get it to Doomwatch for analysis. She has reservations about the program, but refuses, so Carson takes it upon himself before his midnight deadline.
Instead of taking the data tapes, he opens the computer and tampers with the circuit boards. Having completely disconnected one of the circuits from the data and power bus, the board still somehow manages to electrocute him. The fall causes a serious head injury. He is hooked up to the computer for treatment.
More worried now, the sister steals the data tape and gets it too Doomwatch. Their analysis, combined with Hardcastle’s information that the computer is actually a modified War Games computer designed to evolve and defend itself lead Quist to realize that the computer probably did try to kill Carson and will certainly do so again, if he survives his brain surgery.
While Chantry, unaware of the threat, observes the operation, Quist, Ridge and Hardcastle rush through the dangerous streets and navigate the traffic lights of Britain to warn Whittaker.
Whittaker still refuses to believe, so Quist has his team, with the help of Whittaker’s IT guy, Godfrey, shut down the computer when it stops treating Carson. Godfrey is able to purge the computer’s memory of Carson and, when turned back on, the computer begins to treat Carson once more.
Even in the face of all that, Whittaker doesn’t want to believe, but when Godfrey backs up Quist, Whittaker accepts responsibility.
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