6 ms·

Interactive text game of surgery in early 1800s

82 points by erehweb 4y ago

tantalor 4y ago
Crashes on startup in Chrome: > index.html:601 Uncaught DOMException: Failed to read the 'localStorage' property from 'Window': Access is denied for this document.
- shakna 4y ago
  Twine, the engine used, is not so great on checking for feature availability. It assumes that webStorage is available and working, without testing. It also does the same with cookies, and a few other things, unfortunately.
birdyrooster 4y ago
This game made me cry, it’s hard to press through treating someone when you know how futile it is. It’s a bit depressing but at least there are people trying their best with what is available. I wish everyone the best health.
sphinxster 4y ago
Trigger warning, it's described as a "text game", but there are also images.
- the_af 4y ago
  I can see only one image (an exposed fracture) that could be considered gruesome, and it's a drawing.
jbandela1 4y ago
Reminds me of Robert Liston and his 300% mortality surgery: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1202392 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1202392 Liston operated so fast that he once accidentally amputated an assistant’s fingers along with a patient’s leg, according to Hollingham. The patient and the assistant both died of sepsis, and a spectator reportedly died of shock, resulting in the only known procedure with a 300% mortality.
- JackFr 4y ago
  Twenty five seconds to amputate a leg with knives and handsaws. That is amazing.
  - Someone 4y ago
    And reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Liston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Liston, he didn’t even did battlefield surgery. I wonder how he got the experience. https://www.civilwarmed.org/surgeons-call/limbs/ https://www.civilwarmed.org/surgeons-call/limbs/: “Surgery was performed expeditiously and amputation was the usual operation when the extremity had been injured. An amputation took only a few minutes. When the surgery for one patient was completed, another patient was waiting for the operating table. The amputated limbs, at times, accumulated in piles near the operating table before they could be disposed of. This was a gruesome sight and caused comments by uninvolved observers. Such piles of limbs were known to have existed as early as 1811, described by a British officer at a British hospital in France during the Napoleonic wars, at a time when surgery was being done without anesthesia”
- the_af 4y ago
  Wow! Though Wikipedia asserts the case is most likely apocryphal.
saurik 4y ago
> Women’s operations take place on Fridays at St Thomas’s. This was a thing? :(
edvards 4y ago
Had to use Firefox for the game to work, but overall really nice game, quite educational Also just in case for everyone - yes, it is possible to have her survive the surgery, keep trying
- p1necone 4y ago
  I found it pretty easy - the right answers seemed mostly obvious[0]. Wash hands, use the clean apron, use the sharp knife, don't touch corpses before surgery, don't try to do the surgery as fast as possible. The one I wasn't sure about was amputating below vs above the knee, but it turns out you succeed with either if you do most of the rest right (but it seems below the knee is better). [0] Obvious to me, of course doctors at the time didn't understand germ theory.
  - the_af 4y ago
    I agree mostly, with two caveats: "Wash hands" is crossed out if you choose it, "no time for that". From what I've read, fast surgeries (not slow ones) were positively correlated with patient recovery. Wikipedia's page on Robert Liston (mentioned in another comment above) and Florence Nightingale both mention this.
metadat 4y ago
I wish there were more scenarios to play, this was interesting and, in a way, fun.
erehweb 4y ago
If you are in London next week, there is an after hours surgical demonstration on the 11th. https://oldoperatingtheatre.com/event-posts/after-hours-surgery-the-victorian-operating-theatre/ https://oldoperatingtheatre.com/event-posts/after-hours-surg...
ngcc_hk 4y ago
.itch.io … Godot?
- nicexe 4y ago
  Yes, it is published on itch.io. But I wouldn't assume this was done using Godot. It looks more like html+js
chrisgd 4y ago
So crazy reading this and thinking how wrong some of the theories then were. Makes me wonder what todays theories are that people will look back and scoff. Side note, also makes me miss playing drug wars on the TI calculators back in the day
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  I work in surgical simulation training tech. IMO biggest blind spots today are no longer in the medical knowledge or treatment technique itself, but in information and human resource training and organization. We spend millions on sophisticated surgical robots, we have the worlds most advanced medicines, crazy tools, but patients still get hurt as simple mistakes occur when one person doesn’t succeed in conveying some critical piece of information to another person. I am baffled as to how it is possible that the software developers in our office can handle Jira level complexity with the code base, while surgeons continue to use pen and paper to organize their bizarre schedules.
  - eternityforest 4y ago
    Pen and paper is said to be better for retention right?
    - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
      For an individual, sure. I’m talking about the hospital as an information system.
AaronM 4y ago
Reminds me of the Life or Death games https://www.pcgamer.com/saturday-crapshoot-life-and-death/ https://www.pcgamer.com/saturday-crapshoot-life-and-death/ I played quite a lot of this in middle school technology class. Think I actually successfully completed one of the simpler brain surgeries without killing the patient.

82 points by erehweb 4y ago

Crashes on startup in Chrome: > index.html:601 Uncaught DOMException: Failed to read the 'localStorage' property from 'Window': Access is denied for this document.

shakna 4y ago
Twine, the engine used, is not so great on checking for feature availability. It assumes that webStorage is available and working, without testing. It also does the same with cookies, and a few other things, unfortunately.

birdyrooster 4y ago

This game made me cry, it’s hard to press through treating someone when you know how futile it is. It’s a bit depressing but at least there are people trying their best with what is available. I wish everyone the best health.

sphinxster 4y ago

Trigger warning, it's described as a "text game", but there are also images.

the_af 4y ago
I can see only one image (an exposed fracture) that could be considered gruesome, and it's a drawing.

jbandela1 4y ago

Reminds me of Robert Liston and his 300% mortality surgery: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1202392 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1202392 Liston operated so fast that he once accidentally amputated an assistant’s fingers along with a patient’s leg, according to Hollingham. The patient and the assistant both died of sepsis, and a spectator reportedly died of shock, resulting in the only known procedure with a 300% mortality.

JackFr 4y ago
Twenty five seconds to amputate a leg with knives and handsaws. That is amazing.
- Someone 4y ago
  And reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Liston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Liston, he didn’t even did battlefield surgery. I wonder how he got the experience. https://www.civilwarmed.org/surgeons-call/limbs/ https://www.civilwarmed.org/surgeons-call/limbs/: “Surgery was performed expeditiously and amputation was the usual operation when the extremity had been injured. An amputation took only a few minutes. When the surgery for one patient was completed, another patient was waiting for the operating table. The amputated limbs, at times, accumulated in piles near the operating table before they could be disposed of. This was a gruesome sight and caused comments by uninvolved observers. Such piles of limbs were known to have existed as early as 1811, described by a British officer at a British hospital in France during the Napoleonic wars, at a time when surgery was being done without anesthesia”
the_af 4y ago
Wow! Though Wikipedia asserts the case is most likely apocryphal.

saurik 4y ago

> Women’s operations take place on Fridays at St Thomas’s. This was a thing? :(

edvards 4y ago

Had to use Firefox for the game to work, but overall really nice game, quite educational Also just in case for everyone - yes, it is possible to have her survive the surgery, keep trying

p1necone 4y ago
I found it pretty easy - the right answers seemed mostly obvious[0]. Wash hands, use the clean apron, use the sharp knife, don't touch corpses before surgery, don't try to do the surgery as fast as possible. The one I wasn't sure about was amputating below vs above the knee, but it turns out you succeed with either if you do most of the rest right (but it seems below the knee is better). [0] Obvious to me, of course doctors at the time didn't understand germ theory.
- the_af 4y ago
  I agree mostly, with two caveats: "Wash hands" is crossed out if you choose it, "no time for that". From what I've read, fast surgeries (not slow ones) were positively correlated with patient recovery. Wikipedia's page on Robert Liston (mentioned in another comment above) and Florence Nightingale both mention this.

metadat 4y ago

I wish there were more scenarios to play, this was interesting and, in a way, fun.

erehweb 4y ago

If you are in London next week, there is an after hours surgical demonstration on the 11th. https://oldoperatingtheatre.com/event-posts/after-hours-surgery-the-victorian-operating-theatre/ https://oldoperatingtheatre.com/event-posts/after-hours-surg...

ngcc_hk 4y ago

.itch.io … Godot?

nicexe 4y ago
Yes, it is published on itch.io. But I wouldn't assume this was done using Godot. It looks more like html+js

chrisgd 4y ago

So crazy reading this and thinking how wrong some of the theories then were. Makes me wonder what todays theories are that people will look back and scoff. Side note, also makes me miss playing drug wars on the TI calculators back in the day

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
I work in surgical simulation training tech. IMO biggest blind spots today are no longer in the medical knowledge or treatment technique itself, but in information and human resource training and organization. We spend millions on sophisticated surgical robots, we have the worlds most advanced medicines, crazy tools, but patients still get hurt as simple mistakes occur when one person doesn’t succeed in conveying some critical piece of information to another person. I am baffled as to how it is possible that the software developers in our office can handle Jira level complexity with the code base, while surgeons continue to use pen and paper to organize their bizarre schedules.
- eternityforest 4y ago
  Pen and paper is said to be better for retention right?
  - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
    For an individual, sure. I’m talking about the hospital as an information system.

AaronM 4y ago

Reminds me of the Life or Death games https://www.pcgamer.com/saturday-crapshoot-life-and-death/ https://www.pcgamer.com/saturday-crapshoot-life-and-death/ I played quite a lot of this in middle school technology class. Think I actually successfully completed one of the simpler brain surgeries without killing the patient.