Looking through the window, Manon could barely discern the skyline. There had been many power shortages in the city, and Manon wondered if today’s blurred view was due to a lack of street lighting or if the smog had started to appear again.

‘Mom! Is the wire down again?’

‘Yes!’ A canned sound wrenched from the bathroom.

‘Shit! Not only the light…’ Manon cursed the situation and searched aimlessly for his t-shirt on the floor. ‘Yet another day in paradise…’

Manon started worrying. He had surgery to participate in—a significant learning opportunity for his final exams associated with his virtual internship at the city hospital.

Manon is a medical student aiming for graduation in 2062. During most of his medical training, the constant and almost daily power shortages made things quite problematic for the brain-computer interface (BCI)-based medical activities he was training for in the privacy of his own home. Fortunately, he was still living with his mom, as these shortfalls had lengthened his medical training immensely. When electricity was off most of the day, the sound from the gas-driven generator was everyday life, and the Internet was unwired via an antenna. Activities not demanding a high-speed bandwidth often performed during these times were emailing. However, these old-school activities were insufficient for today’s tasks: the wired connection was necessary for transferring the Internet’s 3D space and intelligent sensors’ zettabyte data.

‘Did you get any time for the power outage, Mom?’ Manon’s pulse was high, and he started breathing heavily.

‘Yes! I just got an email from the city service; the power will be on in 10 min.’

‘Great!’

Manon entered the soundproof room and started his computer. He attached the BCI to his head and immediately felt it would be a long day. Manon had several years of BCI training and was one of the few medical students who successfully trained the Vertex version of the BCI software algorithms according to his nervous system’s brain signals. Manon’s professors often pointed out that he had very clear frontal lobe and cerebellum BIM signals, optimal for synchronous virtual surging activities. However, the BCI systems were not always functioning due to lagging or timeouts, which affected the control of the robotic arms located at the hospital interacting with a patient. Such occurrences were okay during training but not with actual patients. Today, Manon was worried as he would sew a wound on a child’s arm, an activity that did not allow for mistakes.

The Internet went on and Manon’s computer immediately launched the BCI systems. While the data was loading, an animated woman wearing a medical robe and a stethoscope around her neck popped on the screen.

‘Congratulations, Manon, on almost completing your 30th examination! Soon graduation time! We appreciate your dedication to the virtual training program in general medicine. You have engaged with the systems with a great endowment, and as a future MD, we are now offering you new courses in the area.’

The woman was talking with great emphasis and interacted deictically with images and charts on the screen, visualizing Manon’s BCI activity measurements over the last couple of months.

‘Based on your BCI activities, we understand that you have preferred internal medicine. Your match is 89%. Congratulations on your amazing achievements! We can now offer you four tailored course options within the area.’

‘What?’ Manon terminated the pop-up screen and covered his face in his hands in hopelessness.

Manon was upset but not surprised by these scores and the suggestions made by the animated doctor. Limited BCI course offerings during the 5 years of his medical training had forced Manon to delve into subjects such as healthcare surgery that was outside his formal training. Taking such courses administered by intelligent tutoring agents was common and had inspired Manon in his final year to indulge also in pediatrics as this was his uttermost wish for specialization. However, Manon’s data accumulated in the AI report were only based on his exam scores and statistics related to his training in general medicine. The AI was not mining the data associated with his other socio-emotional trajectories online. Therefore, Manon felt that his future ambitions were unaccounted for. Manon was not surprised. Data biasing frequently occurred, as AI algorithms did not include personal thoughts and informal data associated with aspirations. This nevertheless created emotional stress and made Manon contemplate his career choices and future.

‘Go figure!’ Manon felt distracted and confused and waited impatiently for all the systems to reboot and launch.

The patient, a 6-year-old girl, was in the surgery booth. Manon entered the virtual side of the booth and unmuted his microphone while his virtual agent appeared on a screen in front of the girl.

‘Hi, how are you today, Amanda?’ Manon was nervous about his first non-supervised surgery and did his best to sound confident.

‘I am good, but I could not enter this room immediately.’ Amanda was choking on the words.

‘Maybe because of the power outage, all systems had to restart. Don’t be nervous about today’s procedure! Everything will be over before you know it. I will start by giving you some anesthesia. Please, put your left arm on the screen.’ By soothing Amanda, Manon felt calmer himself.

Manon started controlling the robot arms equipped with the latest artificial nerves. Then, by dexterously controlling the robot arms’ finger movements on the screen, he efficiently adjusted the surrounding light, put the surgery instruments into place, and positioned Amanda’s arm.

‘Wow! What is this?’ Amanda pointed at a thin object on the screen.

‘It is the anesthesia. I will now hold your arm.’ Manon moved the robot’s arms and pressed a button to activate the anesthesia.

‘Did it hurt?’

‘No! I did not feel a thing.’ Amanda was suddenly calmer.

‘Let’s wait a few minutes and I will start the procedure. Meanwhile, look at the screen on the left wall. Talk to the nurse there while I am finishing.’

A virtual nurse started talking with Amanda. The nurse’s robot hand reached for Amanda’s right hand. They played a word quiz together while Manon was finishing the surgery.

‘Good job, Amanda! The doctor is now finished,’ said the nurse excitedly.

‘Yes, splendid job, Amanda!’, said Manon. ‘You managed to be in the booth without your parents and did an outstanding job! The nurse will now schedule a follow-up. See you in a couple of weeks.’

Manon tore off his BCI. He had completed his first virtual surgery without any time-outs or computer problems! His face was covered in sweat. He was confident that he passed the exam with distinction.