My First Patient

Here he is, my very first patient! This handsome, single, muscular, slightly syncopic guy is Sim-man. And for just $40,000, you could own one to. Heck, for $40,000, I'll lie there for a year and let people take my blood pressure.

Sim-man is worth every penny. He may not be very neat, he doesn't send birthday cards and he can't cook worth a damn, but you can palpate his radial, brachial, and femoral pulses, and take his blood pressure both arm and thigh. You can ausculate his breathing sounds and heart rythmn. What's more, the guy can be hooked up to a computer monitor, and you can give him any number of weird heart arrythmias, cardiac conditions, or lung problems. If his breathing noises get in the way of listening to the heart beat, you can just turn the breathing off. Can you hook your guy up to a computer monitor?

However, I was still horrified at the cost. I took figure sculpture, and I could certainly come up with a model for less than $40,000. So being really obsessive, I went ahead and made my own model for $7.39. It's not quite as dashing, but at least I can practice taking blood pressures without going broke.