Two weeks ago, I wrote about the
difference the computer, and the opportunity to use it for word processing, had
made to the world and writers in particular. What I didn’t know then was that
it was a certain Larry Tesler who provided us with possibly the greatest
innovation for contemporary writers, that was the ‘cut’, ‘copy’, ‘paste’, ‘find’
and ‘replace’ commands. More of which later. Ironically, I probably would not have
found out who he was and that fact that he died aged 74 last week, had it not
been for today’s virtual world. Like many computer geniuses of his age, he was poached
by the legendary Steve Jobs, and worked for Apple for nearly 20 years. He was
their Chief Scientist. And again, like many successful computer scientists,
after he left Apple, he set up an education start-up organisation. Thankfully,
it seems to be a familiar ‘Silicon Valley’ tale of making lots of money, and
upon ‘retirement’, using that money to help others develop their own dreams.
Of course, here in the UK we have
our own successful technology entrepreneurs. James Dyson (of vacuum cleaner and
hairdryer fame) set up a foundation to award young people who are able to ‘design
something that solves a problem’. Part of its mission is to get young people excited
about getting involved with design engineering. In 2015, Joel Gibbard won the UK’s
James Dyson Award for Engineering. Along with Samantha Payne they co-founded the
company Open Bionics. Two years later their company was awarded the UAE AI and
Robotics Award for Good, which came with a $1 million prize!
What they did with this money is
very interesting too. They developed what has come to be known as the Hero Arm.
You can read their story here. It’s a great one. Now, anyone who was a child in
the 1970s probably played at being the Six Million Dollar Bionic Man or Woman.
They both had limbs replaced by robotic prosthetics (I think the Bionic Man also
had a replacement eye that could see clearly for miles). What Open Bionics have
achieved won’t cost folk the six million dollars of the original bionic man’s
arms, but their products are beginning to transform the lives of many folk across
the globe. And yes, if you want, you can have these wonderful prosthetics in
your favourite superhero colours.
They are 3D-fitted and printed,
which makes them much less expensive and much faster to produce, than other
prosthetics. The arms cost around £2,500 each, but compared to other makers in
the market, who usually charge up to £75,000, they are really good value. Which
is perhaps why the first person to receive one on the NHS did so last week. Darren ‘Daz’ Fuller lost part of his arm in the Afghanistan conflict in 2008. He had
served in the Parachute Regiment for some 20 years. He now works for Blesma,
the limbless veterans charity. His new Hero Arm was funded by the NHS Veterans’ Prosthetics Panel, and paves the way for other veterans to receive similar
prosthetics. There is currently a clinical trial being undertaken and Darren is
part of this.
When I read about his story, I had
just read about Larry Tesler’s death, and for a moment, a very irreverent
thought popped into mind in conflating the two different stories – CTRL, X, C, V – for those of you who weren’t around then,
this was the way you once cut and pasted words using your key board before
highlighting and using menu commands came to be the standard. You had to press the
CTRL key, whilst at the same time pressing either X (for cut), C (for copy),
and V (for paste). However, the reality of
replacing a limb is somewhat more complicated then replacing a word.
The Hero Arm works by picking up
signals from muscles in the residual limb. Special sensors detect these muscle
movements, allowing control of the bionic hand with an almost intuitive and
life-like precision. In addition, haptic vibrations, beepers, buttons and
lights all help to provide intuitive notifications. See what I mean about being
complicated – I didn’t even know what haptic vibrations were until I looked it
up – if you don’t know either, you can find out more here – interesting to see
that Apple are once again at the forefront of this using this technology.
However, what I do understand
(well a little more than haptic vibrations) is mental health nursing. Last Friday
was Mental Health Nurses Day. This is a fairly new innovation. Actually, this
year marked only the second celebration of the day. There are perhaps lots of
reasons why marking mental health nurses’ contribution to research, practice,
education and the wider nursing profession is important. You can read about some
of these reasons here.
For me the day was a special one.
It saw the publication launch of a new research monograph edited by two
superstars of the mental health nursing world Charlie Brooker and Ted White. It
is entitled ‘Mental Health Nursing; from the outside, looking in’ and it can be found here. You will need to register, (a 10 second job) but I think you will
be rewarded by a great read. Why am I so confident you might ask? Well I was
one of 11 contributors who provided the ‘data’ for the monograph. I was asked
to produce a short paper on my recollections of the last 20 years of mental
health nursing with a view to looking forward to the future. None of us knew
who else had been asked, and we continued to be ignorant of the identities of
the other contributors until the final draft was ready for sharing.
When I saw my fellow contributors,
I felt really privileged to have been included. And in constructing my contribution
I was absolutely thankful that someone somewhere had made it possible to move
my words around so easily and construct what I think is one of my better pieces
of writing. The ‘Brave New World’ that I hoped would provide the backbone to
future mental health nurse education in my concluding paragraph was certainly
one that Tesler embraced, so thank you Larry.
No comments:
Post a Comment