At the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, unlike just about everywhere else, kids going into surgery are not screaming and kicking during the sevoflurane inhalational anesthesia induction. This development is due to Sevo the Dragon, an animated video game character that breathes fire onto his food to cook it. The video game is actually played by the child on a screen attached to the front of the wheeled hospital bed, but instead of using a typical video game controller, the child knows to inhale and exhale into the anesthesia mask to make Sevo breathe fire onto his snack.
It’s not clear whether the dragon really is controlled by the child breathing into the mask. We suspect there’s a bit of deception going on in the background, but that’s the entire purpose of this technology. And it’s been working so well that Sevo will soon be a standard companion for all kids going into the OR at Lucile Packar Children’s.
Here’s a video showing off Sevo the Dragon:
