Kaitlyn Crow

Mr. Ratliff
ISM-1
10 December 2019
Trauma Surgery
Original Work Assessment #13

My original work consists of a computer game in which the player attempts to save the
life of a dying person in an emergency scenario. My objective was to create a game that would
be fun to play and educational, so that I could spread awareness about emergency preparation.
Each stage of the game involves a description of what is going on and choices on how to
proceed. There is only one correct choice, and the rest will result in the death of the patient.
In order to create this game, I had to perform extensive research on various trauma
scenarios and how to respond to them. I had originally planned to include multiple scenarios in
the game, but I was surprised by the amount of time it took to create just one scenario so I
decided to stick with one for now. I chose impalement because it involves teaching how to assess
a patient after trauma, treat a major wound, and observe for signs of hypovolemic shock. These
skills are very important for any trauma scenario, whether it be as dramatic as impalement or not.
I coded the game on my computer notepad using HTML. I was able to insert a link for each
choice on each stage of the game that would direct the player to a new page with content
explaining their choice. This proved to be very time consuming because I also had to teach
myself how to code with HTML. However, once I figured it out it was not difficult. My greatest
setback came when I was testing out the game and found that it had deleted from my computer. I
am still not sure what caused this, but I was able to prevent it in the future by redoing the whole
project and saving each note page as a new file every time I made a change to the code. For this
reason, the original work I have today is less aesthetically pleasing than what I had first created
due to the time constraint.
Creating this game required a much higher level of thinking than simply researching
trauma. I had to do research on what to actually do in an emergency situation, which proved
difficult because most content is designed for medical professionals in a hospital. I designed this
scenario to be for people without medical resources or training, so I had to modify what I
researched. I also had to come up with alternative choices that seemed reasonable but were
incorrect. This means I had to try and imagine what someone without medical training would
think to do in this situation.
My exact process involved first researching how to treat the medical emergencies of
severe injury leading to hypovolemic shock, heat stroke, severe allergy attack, and diabetic
shock. Next, I took that research and modified it to match what a civilian without medical
resources could do to treat these emergencies. I used this to make a basic outline of what medical
choices should be made in these scenarios. I then added one or two incorrect but plausible
choices next to each correct one. Afterwards, I coded the actual game. I tried to be as descriptive
as possible when designing it but I also knew that if I put too much writing, people would not
read it. I will test whether I found the correct balance of this when my peers play the game.
Overall, I enjoyed learning about how to treat patients in emergency situations and trying
to educate others about it. I hope that my peers can have fun playing the game while learning
how to save a life.