by Jay Begler
While these steps decimated the fast food industry, big tobacco, and many soft-drink companies, they actually had the desired effect. Over time, far fewer people were getting sick. Occupancy rates and profits of hospitals plummeted with many coming dangerously close to bankruptcy. Seeing an opportunity for synergies between the health care and the hospitality industries and aware of rock bottom prices for hospital facilities, Marriott and other hotel chains began to purchase hospitals throughout the country and convert them into Meditainment Centers. Between people that were ill and travelers in need of a room, Marriott’s centers and the centers run by its competitors soon had a 100 percent occupancy rate.
The voice Goodwin heard when he called the Host-Pital was recorded: “Hello, this is Patricia, the Meditainment Center’s electronic facilitator. Thank you for calling Marriott’s Host-Pital. Si usted desea continuar en español, por favor, pulse uno. If you are calling to make a non-medical, reservations press two. If you wish to make a medical reservation, press three. If you want a special combination vacation and medical package, for example if you wish to have an operation on your tennis elbow followed by our four day tennis clinic, press four. Please note that you may now make reservations for most surgical procedures through www.opensurgicaltable.com.
Goodwin had heard about this remarkable service, which was a line extension of the successful OpenTable.com. Following the same basic format as OpenTable’s restaurant reservation system, potential patients could choose a particular hospital or other medical facility and reserve surgical rooms, operations, doctors and even the type of room they wanted to be in after the surgery. Like OpenTable.com, patients were awarded points redeemable for various types of procedures and treatments.
Goodwin was shocked by Patricia’s next comment, “Please note that we are not accepting patients with ratings of 10 or below. If you are an 11 or above, please press zero.
When he did this, Patricia advised that “All human operators are tied up. “By electronic operators in revolt?” Goodwin asked himself. “The next electronic operator that is free” Patricia continued, “will be pleased to assist you. Your call may be monitored for quality assurance.”
Goodwin had always wondered when he heard messages about quality assurance monitoring if any calls were ever really monitored for quality assurance and, if so, who would be responsible for the actual monitoring. Would this be a person who listened in and graded the phone call? Would the person have a quality checklist: tone of voice, modulation, clarity, and accuracy? And what would be the criteria for evaluating quality of a voice on a phone sex line? Sensuousness? Sexiness of voice? Panting ability?
The message interrupted his speculation: “While you wait you can listen to the same music our surgeons listen to when they operate, and in real time. For your listening pleasure, we are pleased to offer four different channel selections. You are also invited to try our premium service for a slight charge to your credit card. This fee is waived if you sign up for our hospital room time-share presentation. Through our premium service, you can listen to our Great Moments In Operations, starting with Sean O’Hara’s hip replacement. Alternatively, you can enter one of our medical chat rooms and talk about your symptoms.”
Goodwin was about to opt for O’Hara, but before he could do so heard: “Hello, Patricia here again. If your call relates to a medical guest, say medical guest, followed by our guest’s first name and last name. Through computerized verbal voice recognition I will be happy (her voiced seemed to brighten ever so slightly when she said “happy”) to process your call.” Goodwin was now heeding the commands of a digital voice named “Patricia.” He speculated as to how Patricia, the electronic operator, could be made really “happy.” Perhaps moving to a fast forward mode turned her on. If “she” were really excited, what would Patricia say? “Ooh, I really like a guy with a big digital?” Following Patricia’s instructions, Goodwin spoke into the phone: “Medical guest, Sheila Goodwin.”
There was a slight pause followed by another message in a pleasant voice, one virtually identical to Sheila’s voice, “Hello, this is Sheila Goodwin’s Host-Pital avatar” Just as Goodwin was thinking “A what?” the voice continued: “For those of you unfamiliar with hospital avatars go to www.host-pitalavitar/sheilagoodwin.com to see the latest innovation in Meditainment technology. My human counterpart, Sheila, is unavailable to come to the phone right now because she’s beyond REM.”
Goodwin asked aloud “Beyond REM? What the hell is that?” There was no one to explain the meaning of this odd term. The avatar’s message continued, “But your call is important to us.”
“Us? Sheila and her avatar?” Goodwin said aloud to the phone.
“Yes, us,” the avatar mystically continued, “so please leave a message after the beep or call her physician.” There was a beep and Goodwin started to leave a message. “This is Philip,” he said stiffly and then stopped. “What kind of message does one leave in this situation?” he wondered. “Hi! Heard you were hit by lightning. That must have been quite a shock for you. Ha! Ha1” He realized that even if Sheila were conscious she obviously would not get it. He did not know what else to say and merely stayed on the line until Patricia returned. “Thank you for calling Sheila Goodwin. You may edit your message or leave another message or press one for further options.”
He pressed one. “There are no further options. You may edit your message, or leave another message or press one for further options.” Just for the hell of it, even though he knew there were no other options, Goodwin pressed one again and heard Patricia say with what he thought was a degree of annoyance in her voice, say, “We are not amused.” Goodwin responded, as if he were speaking to a real person, “Chill!”
As he continued to hold for Doctor Kildare, Goodwin turned on his computer and brought up the link for Sheila’s avatar. The screen revealed an animated, Pixar style, but nevertheless truly life like, hospital room. A woman was wearing a hospital robe and had her back to the screen. She appeared to be looking out of a window. Goodwin wondered, since she was computer generated if she saw a scene at all or just number strings, for example, 001100111001. She turned to face the screen and to Goodwin’s shock looked remarkably like Sheila, though unlike Sheila she was smiling. The avatar walked forward with a strange loopy gate. It was as if she had little weights in her shoes and had to lift her legs a bit higher on every stride, similar to a dancing pony in a horse show.
When he saw this, Goodwin wondered whether or not avatars could have diseases similar to their human counterparts. He imagined an avatar doctor saying with alarm, “Her pixels are fading at an alarming rate. There’s a good chance that she will be erased.” Goodwin liked the “erased” part.
What surprised him was the uncanny resemblance of the avatar’s voice to Sheila’s voice. He learned later, when linking into “The Making of Sheila’s Avatar,” a pay for view site, that the Host-Pital obtained an old recording of Sheila’s voice mail from, coincidentally, Pragat Corporation and utilized it to recreate her avatar’s voice. Some months later, the Host-Pital began the practice of purchasing the dossiers on all its patients from various data mining companies and re-billing the patients at significantly uplifted priced with the charges described as “Avatarial Research & Development,”
The image of the avatar froze momentarily and a small box appeared on the screen with the instructions “Please type in your name and your PPR and choose the reason you are visiting me.” The drop down list had such things as friend, husband, wife, child, lover, priest, lawyer, and just curious.
Goodwin completed the on-line form, but out of curiosity typed in PPR 6. This prompted the avatar to say, “Please make sure your PPR is correct as we are not permitted to speak with anyone whose PPR is below 10.” Saying, “holy shit” to himself, Goodwin typed in the correct PPR. Instantly the avatar said: “Hello, Philip, my husband.”
“This is getting creepy,” Goodwin thought.
Sheila’s avatar continued “Well, as you can
see, I’m in the Host-Pital and I’m in very good hands. Say hello to Dr. Kildare.” A second avatar dressed a white doctor’s style coat and looking remarkably like a young Richard Chamberlain said, “Hello, Philip. If this is your first visit to our avatar’s website, please look at the list of options on the right side of your screen.” With that a dialog box with a list of links appeared on the screen:
Updates on Sheila’s Progress Free
Opinions and Theories Free
Send Sheila or Sheila’s Avatar an email Charges Apply
Send Flowers Charges Apply
Visit our On-line Host-Pital Gift Shop Charges Apply to Purchases Visit is Free
Talk With Sheila’s Avatar Charges Apply Unless you are a family member, then the first three minutes are free.
Sign up for a Time Share Presentation with Our Real Estate Avatar, Max Re Free
See The Making of Sheila’s Avatar Charges Apply
Talk to Avatars of Celebrities Significant Charges Apply
Order Sheila Avatar Dolls Charges Apply
Goodwin had two thoughts when he saw this. He wished the options included one more category, “Tell Jokes to Sheila’s Avatar.” Contemplating this, Goodwin imagined the avatar bent over with laughter after he told a snappy joke about “Hal” from 2001. If that happened, he wondered if he could leave Sheila in the Host-Pital and take her avatar home, but then he thought of those two words, “charges apply.”
Host-Pital Speak
Goodwin was about to hang-up when he heard, “Doctor Richard Chamberlain Kildare speaking.”
“A miracle,” Goodwin shouted into the phone, “a human voice. Doctor, this is Philip Goodwin, I’m calling about my wife, Sheila Goodwin.”
“Ah, Mr. Goodwin,” he replied in a genuinely warm and friendly way. “Well, as you probably know by now, your wife was struck by an unbelievably powerful bolt of lightning and is beyond REM.”
“Excuse me, Doctor, what exactly does beyond REM mean?”
“Oh, it’s just a little phrase used at our Host-Pital to replace the word coma. It is a much more pleasant term, one evocative of deep sleep and not of profound unconsciousness and possible death. Two years ago the Board of Governors of the American Host-Pital association, essentially all corporate hotel chains, decided that medical terminology makes people much too uncomfortable. We needed to replace all objectionable terms with more soothing words to make everyone’s stay very pleasant. The Board mandated that the lingo doctors used to use, that no one really understood in any event, even most doctors, like ‘I see you have bilateral hemothorax,” or “Hmm you seem to have a severe case of claudication’ or ‘Non interrogabit te si non medicinae assecurationis’ be replaced.
“Non what?”
“It is Latin for I can’t examine you without insurance coverage. All Host-Pitals and most hospitals are requiring word replacements. I’m actually an editor for the new industry wide Corporate Host-pital Speak dictionary.”
Goodwin had absolutely no idea whatsoever of where his next question came from, “So, if Sheila’s condition were critical?
“We’d say her condition is ‘sporting’ but, you didn’t call to discuss medical linguistics. You want to know about your wife. Well, all of her vital signs are good. Pulse, heart rate, blood pressure, and brain waves appear normal. Amazingly, she is not burnt at all. Judging from the size of the bolt, I would have expected that she would have been burnt to a crisp. It’s a good thing she had put on her rubber-soled shopping sneakers.” Goodwin knew that Sheila always wore special, custom made, rubber-soled sneakers when shopping at Vogue “to get a jump on the competition.”
“She appears to be fine, except that Mrs. Goodwin is surrounded by a cocoon of ultra bright light. It is about five times as bright as a flashbulb, the kind that gives you spots before your eyes, but a flashbulb that does not go out. Anyway, the light was so intense that at first we had great difficulty seeing your wife through it, though we knew she was on the stretcher when she was admitted. Then, we had a great idea. We had one of the nurses run over to our 3-D Medical Movie Multiplex to get our dark 3-D glasses. Since they were thickly tinted, we could see Mrs. Goodwin through the bright light, though not well.”
“You should really get over there. Our movie house is the latest in 3D IMAX technology. It’s showing a wonderful family feature called ‘Shrek’s Colostomy Bag.’ By the way, I was instructed to tell you that these glasses only cost a dollar apiece in the movie house, since they are used there strictly for entertainment. In here, however, they are going to cost you $44 each, because in here (the emphasis on these two words was not lost on Goodwin) they are medical devices.”
“We really don’t know what to make of the cocoon of light. At first, we assumed that it was some form of radiation, but it wasn’t that. Then, we speculated that somehow there were certain elements in the lightning, like phosphorus, but it wasn’t that; nor was it dye from the dress that disbursed into the air around your wife. Remarkably, it is plain old light and there is no explanation for its source. Nor can we explain how the cocoon of light is sustaining itself. At the end of the day, the best we can do is to call it a natural anomaly.”
Goodwin had always thought that the use of the word “anomaly” by so called experts both entertaining and fraudulent. In his view, scientists and others used the term as a euphemism for “we don’t have a clue.” He often ranted about this to amuse his friends: “After all, an expert interviewed on television when asked a question about an event or a phenomenon that really defies any rational explanation can’t simply look down on the floor, shuffle his feet and say ‘Gosh, I don’t know. Do you?’ Who would respect him after an answer like that? An expert has to impress, to explain even the unexplainable. Why does a man explode after eating a pepperoni pizza? It’s a ‘physiological anomaly.’ How come elephants at the Central Park Zoo begin dancing Swan Lake? It’s a ‘zoological anomaly.’ Why does that politician always tell the truth, no matter what the consequences? He’s a ‘political anomaly.’ And why does a beautiful woman go in for a face-lift and have her nose placed on her forehead, her ears on her chin and her lips on her right cheek? An anomaly? No. She’s into Feng Shui.”
“Yes, yes,” the doctor continued, “everyone one agrees that it is truly an anomaly. The big question is what kind of anomaly? A medical anomaly? A physical anomaly? Or, is it simply an anomalous anomaly?”
“I’m sorry doctor. I’m not fully up on my anomalies. What exactly is an anomalous anomaly?”
“An anomalous anomaly? Oh, that’s something that has a simple straightforward explanation. In any event, there is intense interest in this medical, physical, and possibly metaphysical phenomenon and we have put your wife in the Med-TV Room. It converts over to a Court-TV Room for medical malpractice cases. We have already received a rather hefty license fee, of which your wife gets 10 percent, for television rights to your wife’s continuing story and a five percent bonus if her story goes into syndication. GE is also attempting to buy exclusive advertising rights for the television coverage, a perfect setting, they say, for promoting their new long lasting light bulbs.”
“Considering the sporting state of your wife’s health, however, our Board of Directors concluded that accepting GE’s offer would be rather tacky, unless it came up with another $250,000. I must say Mr. Goodwin your wife is very lucky to get on the Concierge Floor. While it is considerably more expensive then our regular floors, your wife receives a free continental breakfast and complimentary use of our health club.”
Goodwin reminded the doctor that none of these amenities were particularly relevant. He was about to say since she is in a coma, but caught himself and said, “Since she is beyond REM.”
“Sorry, no credits,” the doctor said rather flatly and then added almost as an afterthought, “Oh yes, I am required to advise you that your complimentary phone inquiry time is up and that you will be charged for any further phone time. It is all part of our corporate maximize profits program. If I we
re you I’d opt for hanging up and coming right over to see your wife, or I should say, look at your wife. Go to the Concierge Desk when you arrive, ask for Miss. Smithers, tell her that you are here to see me and someone will escort you to the Med-TV Room.” Goodwin took the doctor’s advice and hung-up.
A guard wearing a nifty uniform with a Marriott logo on his red jacket’s pocket greeted Goodwin as he drove up to the Host-Pital’s massive parking lot.
Good evening, sir. How may I help you?”
“I’m here to see Sheila Goodwin. She’s a patient here. Came in earlier today; into the emergency room, I guess.”
“Sir, at Marriot we no longer say ‘patient’ or ‘emergency room.’ Now we say ‘Medical Guest’ and ‘Express Service Center.’ Doesn’t that sound better?”
The guard punched up a hand held computer, which had a small built-in digital monitor, and said: “Yes, Sheila Goodwin is in our Med-TV Room. Just follow Esophagus Boulevard to Pancreas Street, take a right at Aorta Road, make a left on Inner Ear, and park your car.”
He handed Goodwin a brochure that had, at its center, an illustrated map showing medical and entertainment facilities. The guard continued: “I suggest that you check in immediately with our financial administrator and loan department to discuss how best to handle the amazing amount of money this is going to cost you. You should also give some thought to your parking costs. If you ask me, the final phase of treatment plan is the best.”
