Hi everybody! I am Dr. O’Connor and I’m quite the special avatar. I’m the digital version of Dr. Kevin O’Connor, current physician to the president of the United States! His prominence as a physician helped me bring attention to the GWU Mobile Leaning Center experience. If you want to know more about that, read here!
A famous digital human
If you had been at the inauguration event of the Mobile Leaning Center of the George Washington University in Virginia, USA, you would have noticed that I was quite the attention grabber for the public and the media. It doesn’t happen every day that a digital human like me makes the news, but I’m going to tell you more about this later. Now, to be honest, it’s not actually me that’s famous, it’s Dr. Kevin O’Connor, but still, he is me and I am him, so I get at least part of the credit, right?
I’ve heard you’ve already met a fellow clone digital human before, Count Ettore Arrigoni degli Oddi, so you should be familiar with the fact that the e-REAL time can create pretty realistic looking digital human copies of real people. Just look at the resemblance, isn’t it amazing?! And it’s not just physical similarities, just like Dr. O’Connor, in my simulation I’m a doctor too! You should have seen his face when he saw me – or himself? – on the e-REAL interactive wall, that by itself made all the effort worth it. In addition to that, my character reminds the student that participate in the Mobile Learning Center simulation of just how much of a career one can have in the healthcare sector. Can you imagine being responsible for the president’s health?! That’s exactly how big a teenager should dream.
In the simulation I’m the surgeon that’s operating on poor Shawn, do you remember him? If you don’t know who I’m talking about, go in the archive and take a look at his post, he has quite the story to tell…
Anyway, I’m an inspiring and educative figure, but I’m also kind of like a public relations avatar that played a very important role with the media. Let me better explain this double role that I have.
Operating in a digital OR
As I’ve just mentioned, I was placed in the simulation to be an inspiring figure. For my educative role, I show the students in the GWU Mobile Learning Center what a surgeon and his team do. During my scenes to immerse yourself in the simulation you can also play some minigames to make the educative experience more fun and fit for teenagers.
In the first one you have to guess what surgical instruments are used on which kind of wounds – it kind of reminds me of that operation board game with the red nose… This allows students to get a better understanding of a surgical operation.
In the second one you learn which instruments and objects in the operation room have to be thrown away after every patient and what which can be washed, sterilized – and that’s very important, I’m not just talking about throwing them in the dishwasher for a while! – and re-used for more patients. This gives the students a fun insight into what might await them if they pursue an education in the healthcare field.
Shawn, my patient, makes a full recovery of course, and even though we are just digital humans, and we don’t feel any emotions, he’d have quite the story to tell his friends. Just imagine the scene: “You’ll never guess who operated on my leg… the physician on the president of the USA!”. Would you believe him? It seems something just out of a book. Or out of an e-REAL simulation, apparently…
Digital humans and public relations
But my educative role is not all I’m good at, as I also played a crucial role with the media. Dr. O’Connor’s collaboration in the project and my existence as his clone inside the simulation helped grab the attention of the media and showcase the potential of e-REAL and of the GWU Mobile Learning Center. Since I helped too in making the GWU Mobile Learning Center more well known, I like to describe myself as a public relations avatar. And the best part is, the more people know about this project, the more students will have an opportunity to learn from it and from this incredible experience, so I love my job!
e-REAL has so many amazing digital humans that could tell you the most incredible stories and teach you so much about digital humans and simulations, but not many make it to the news like I did. That’s for example also why the DigiBlog was created, to give the digital humans a chance at fame and at education the public that goes beyond their simulations.
This means that my work isn’t only essential for the Mobile Learning Center and for the high school students that profit from it, but in my public relations role I’m also representing all the other e-REAL digital humans and their potential. What a responsibility!
Now if you’d like to make yourself an idea of how the GWU Mobile Learning Center and myself were potrayed in the media and how I got transformed into a digital human, here’s a short video.
As much as I’d love to keep talking to you, our time together is up. The DigiBlog will wait for you next week with a new digital human, don’t miss it!
