Presenter: Hello! Today we continue the discussion of modern professional challenges and their unusual solutions. The guest of our program is Dr. Bennet, a paediatrician from California who believes that a hospital should be run like a spaceship. Good morning, Dr. Bennet! How did you come up with such an unusual idea?

Dr. Bennet: Good morning! Well, I was 8 years old when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon and I’ve been following aerospace achievements ever since. So, when I became a doctor and started treating new-⁠born babies, it occurred to me that both healthcare and spaceflights have a lot in common  — they are both complex and high-⁠risk activities. In fact, space flights are often a much higher-⁠risk activity than healthcare, because everything there is happening in the airless environment of space at a very high speed with over 2 million moving parts in the spaceship! So the question arises  — how do they do it… safely?

Presenter: Yes, I have to admit that we don’t hear much about emergencies in spaceflights.

Dr. Bennet: Precisely! Although believe me, emergencies do occur! It is how quickly you can find the right solution that matters. And this is exactly what we have in healthcare, too. So I asked myself: How can I learn how NASA does what it does and apply it to healthcare? And the only obvious answer was  — Go to the source! So I gave NASA a phone call.

Presenter: You did? And did they even answer?

Dr. Bennet: Absolutely! Well, to be honest, it took some time to find the right person to talk to. But once I found him, things became easier. My visit to NASA was arranged. And I found the answer to my question!

Presenter: So, what’s their secret?

Dr. Bennet: Well, it’s not a real secret. In fact, it turned out that everybody knows what they do. Their practice even made its way into videogames!

Presenter: You are not talking about flight simulators, are you?

Dr. Bennet: Of course I am. But again  — it is not so much what they do, but how they do it. In our medical schools we also have simulators. We practice our skills on them before we actually do it on real people. But first of all, very often our students don’t take it seriously. You will hear a lot of giggling in such a class, as if they were playing dolls. Secondly, just as I’ve said, we mostly have those medical simulators in universities  — training our students. Once they become doctors and start working with real patients  — no more simulators. At NASA they have a totally different attitude towards this. Firstly, they simulate everything. There are people who design all sorts of problems astronauts can face in flight and they simulate each one of them and combinations of several. Because as you know, in real life it never rains, but pours. Secondly, it’s not only young inexperienced astronauts who have to do it. No matter how many times you’ve been in space, you have to go through simulation programs. And they do it really seriously.

Presenter: No giggling?

Dr. Bennet: Not at all. They realize how important it is. When they are out there in space, their life depends on how well they can find solutions to problems. And what’s more, after each simulation they have a very serious debriefing.

Presenter: Debriefing is when they discuss how well or badly they did in training, right?

Dr. Bennet: Yes, exactly. But again, they do it in a very business-⁠like way and mostly discuss their weaknesses, not strengths. And what’s more, unlike our medical students, they are happy to find and then discuss their weaknesses and mistakes  — because again, if they discover them in flight, rather than in a simulator, it can lead to very bad consequences, so the more mistakes they make while they are on Earth, the better prepared they will be... (fading out).