Auto Doc: Difference between revisions

[[File:Health station 974.jpg|link=Borderlands|right]]

 

 

In [[The Future]] or [[Twenty Minutes in The Future|sometime soon]], you won't need a steady hand to heal people, some machine is already doing it for you. In a futuristic setting there will be machines that fix human bodies automatically. If a human doctor is participating in it at all, he will only press buttons and won't even touch a scalpel.

 

The appearance of these machines can range from complex apparatus to [[Clarke's Third Law|seemingly magic]] circles.

 

''Note: There is a difference between this and Save/Heal points in video games. Unless the healing effect is referred to In-universe, it's an [[Acceptable Break From Reality]].''

* In ''[[Gall Force]]'', when Lufy is brought into the analysis station operated by Spea, they just move her into a chamber and press some buttons to restart her heart from a state of suspended animation. Spea mentions offhand that there are several injuries that may require organ replacement.

* ''[[The Law of Ueki]]'' has Heavenly Beasts that release a healing machine which fully restores anyone inside it for exactly 10 minutes. However, if the healing process is interrupted in any way and the machine is damaged, the person inside it will die.

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Idiocracy]]'' has semi-automatic medical stations. The probes have to be inserted by person. [[Brain Bleach]] happens when that person got confused on which probes should be used on which hole...

* In ''[[The Fifth Element]]'', the machine used to "repair" [[Human Alien|Leeloo]]. It actually reconstructs her from what is essentially a bone fragment containing living cells.

 

== Literature ==

* The [[Star Wars]] expanded universe provides more models of medical droid and more details on their advantages and disadvantages: medical droids can have a near-limitless knowledge of sentient species to let them heal the massive variety of patients in the galaxy, and they often have a precision that only a machine could have during surgery. On the flip side, their bedside manner often left something to be desired and led to patients not trusting a droid to operate on them and very few droids (such as the 21B from ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'') being intelligent enough to deal with unforeseen complications and side effects.

* Homes in [[Robert Reed]]'s ''Great Ship'' universe usually have an Autodoc. However, the autodocs serve mostly as a way to repair mutated genes - humanity's [[Transhuman|emergency genes]] can repair most blunt trauma if the body has enough spare mass (fat, muscle).

 

* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' two-parter {{spoiler|"The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances"}}, a nanotechnology [[Gone Horribly Wrong|designed to heal]], creates some of the most potent scares in the new series up to that point.

** Also, In "The Curse of the Black Spot", {{spoiler|the Siren}}.

* ''[[Look Around You]]'' brings us Medibot, the first ever machine qualified to automatically perform surgeries. One of the hosts decides to test this new technology on himself by having it give him a facelift...the results of which, to put it mildly, suggests that Medibot is still not quite suited for life-saving surgeries.

* The Alien Medpack from ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' is required to revive Elvis ([[The Greys|a Grey]]) from his comatose state before you can escape Area51 with him. It takes about a minute to work on him.

 

== Tabletop RPG ==

** Encasing Military Armors had the Battle Doc 6000 system, which acted like a Healing Pack on the Armor's wearer.

** Regeneration Tanks were filled with a special regenerative chemical that healed damaged organs and wounds. There are rumors about a special kind of Regeneration Tank that can bring people back from the dead if used within 24 hours of death.

* "Healing Vats" are the oldest and most common forms of medical nanotechnology in ''[[Eclipse Phase]]''. They can regenerate a lost limb in about twelve hours and restore a severed head's body in a week or two.

* Gamescience's ''Space Patrol'' (1977) had the Medikit, which was strapped to its owner's wrist or waist and constantly monitored its wearer's well being. When something went wrong with their body, it would inject any needed drugs to remedy the situation.

** The Medsuit is a garment worn under other clothing. It has a VS (Vital Signs) pack that monitors its wearer's blood pressure, heart rate, brain activity and other medical information. If the VC pack detects medical problems in its wearer it can inject appropriate drugs as needed. If the wearer loses a limb or part of one (hand, foot) it will clamp down, preventing further blood loss.

** The MekDoc is a robot designed to perform all kinds of medical procedures on a patient, up to and including surgery. It can diagnose problems, dose patients with drugs, change wound dressings etc.

 

== Video Games ==

** In ''[[Fallout: New Vegas|New Vegas]]'', Caesar heads up the Legion, an explicitly technophobic group of tribes and gangs, not using anything more advanced than basic rifles, a motorized grinding wheel, and at least one [[Chainsaw Good|chainsaw]]. If you actually get into Caesar's tent, he has an autodoc mounted to the foot of his bed.

** In the ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' DLC "Dead Money", you find Christine inside one.

* In the NES game ''[[Nightshade]]'', there's a healing booth in the superhero Vortex's cave. Nightshade is allowed in only after gaining sufficiency notoriety with his heroics.

* ''[[Xenosaga II]]'': Jin Uzuki mentions that such machines have taken over most of the doctors' duty, with the doctors (he included) now essentially being counselors.

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[A Miracle of Science]]'' has [http://www.project-apollo.net/mos/mos340.html this] [http://www.project-apollo.net/mos/mos349.html doc].

* In ''[[Escape from Terra]]'' most households on Mars or Ceres supposedly have one that can repair a shot through the heart if gotten to soon enough. They're illegal on Terra though due to their ban on biotech and nanotech.

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers]]'' established that one of these was on Ranger-1. Good thing, as none of the party were known medics!

 

== Real Life ==

 

{{reflist}}