Why do people on HN consistently presume that they somehow know better than the experts? It’s distressing to me that anybody can say something like this with a straight face.
But seriously, the amount of people on here trivializing modern medicine isn't helping matters.
Granted, neither is business-as-usual, but a 30-day "ventilator boot camp" for untrained professionals is going to kill far more people than it helps. And a poor allocation of resources during a time of scarcity.
It's absolutely incredible. But that's exactly the kind of attitude that 'move fast and break things' fosters.
Perhaps you think our capacity won't be overwhelmed. Then it would make perfect sense not to bother training amateur operators. If you think an amateur operator is worse than no operator, I'd like to see your evidence. If all you have is your intuition then my intuition is that you're wrong.
Going from zero to medical professional - not a doctor, just someone who can perform invasive medical procedures without killing a large number of people - isn't 30 days of work. Ignoring that reality will recklessly endanger people's lives.
If we're talking veterinarians, dentists, nurses, residents, MDs in unrelated specialties - then sure! They actually have the requisite knowlege and manual dexterity to cross-train. But going from, say SWE to ventilator operator, is not a 30 day crash course.
> If you think an amateur operator is worse than no operator, I'd like to see your evidence. If all you have is your intuition then my intuition is that you're wrong.
Because then you end up wasting a life and keeping a ventilator occupied, when there are much more efficient ways to kill patients that don't involve misusing a ventilator.
Former scientist, including (lab side) FDA trials. Medicine is complicated. Even sterile technique, to make sure you don't inadvertently give your patient a life-threatening infection in the process of "helping" them, can take years to get right. This is true of the most routine aspects of any kind of medical work.
But, do tell: since my "intuition" is so obviously wrong, I want to hear all about your empirical research. Or let's just start with your credentials, medical or otherwise.
This pretty much dissolves your only real objection, that we'd be keeping a ventilator occupied that would otherwise be in use. Nope. The solution to a deficit of ventilators is producing more - not letting people die without them.
Generally, you are trying to invent reasons and restrictions to make trying to train ventilator-operators seem like a bad idea rather than understanding or advancing how the idea might be viable. An example of this is how you acknowledge that training other medical adjacent professionals (e.g. vetrenarians) would likely work. Great, you agree the idea could work. If you expect that our capacity will be overwhelmed then presumably you think we should training additional operators. Instead of reaching that conclusion you imagine reasons to object to the idea though.
A SWE would likely be worse than a vet after a bootcamp. That's a good reason to have some entry requirements to the bootcamp and those requirements could be relaxed or strengthened depending on where we expect demand to be in 30 days relative to supply. A SWE through a 30-day bootcamp would likely be better than nothing.
The other main constraint you've imagined is that they would need to save more people than they kill to be worthwhile. No, they'd need to save more people than would die without them. If it would be better to just struggle to breathe than have an amateur operator, that would be an argument against them.
Your credentials, whatever they are, haven't equipped you to clearly communicate your reasons for opposing this idea. As I mentioned, it seems like you actually support some version of it.
There's actually a surprising amount of anti-intellectualism on HN, as evidenced by the persistent "People don't truly need a CS degree to be a qualified software developer; it's just gatekeeping." rhetoric one sees.
Do you know how to operate a ventilator? Why do you think that volunteers couldn't learn to do it?