Pros

• Acronym works beautifully– WWARD (Walk with a Robot Doc). Therefore our robot’s name is ‘Ward’ (Flounder was taken).
• We developed 3 different prototypes. We gave the 3 different robots the exact phenotype (physical appearance) as WardCleaver (fictional TV dad of the 50’s), Hines Ward (star wide receiver for the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers from 1998-2011) and Ward Kimball famed early Disney cartoonist and creator of such icons as Mickey Mouse, Jiminy Cricket, the Mad Hatter and others.  People recognized him less than the other two.
• As the 60 Minutes clip shared, there are 8000 new journal articles everyday. Every medical journal is downloaded into ‘Ward’s’ “brain” every morning.  For our adolescent docs, ‘Ward’ will also carry Instagram, and other popular apps. All this information is too much for us human docs to keep up, not too much for Ward.
• Additionally, we are able to give all the Wards (Super Robot Docs) a pleasant seasonal scent. Lilacs until September 1st at which time their scent will switch over to Pumpkin Spice. In November, they become Cranberry which is what they will end the calendar year with. We were unable to persuade our human docs to do this.
• By ordering in bulk, the cost of building a Super Robot Doc is slightly over $7,400 (not cheap). But, in the long run we’re saving. If these SRDs were to drink coffee and eat bananas at the rate of some of eh-hem, normal human docs (NHDs) that would cost the walk a total of $27, 324 in physician consumption. That’s a lot of Scooby Snacks.Cons
  
• During some of the Beta-testing, Ward was giving out the right medical advice but, unfortunately, for the wrong disease.  For example, he attempted to perform the Dix Hallpike maneuver (typically reserved for those with benign positional vertigo) to someone who wanted antibiotics for a UTI. Needless to say, this was not well received.
• Ward was also approaching visitors on our WWAD Tram Tours and offering unsolicited diagnoses that were just plain wrong. One example, was one of our visitors from Turkey. He was wearing a royal blue shirt on the tour that day. Ward saw this gentleman, and interrupted our tour docent concerned that the visitor had amiodarone toxicity. Ward elbowed his way onto the tram and attempted to physically examine this gentleman’s thyroid and liver during the tour. In Ward’s defense, he was looking for other ‘collateral damage’ from this antiarrhythmic. Of course, Ahmet was not even taking amiodarone and this was an embarrassing situation for all involved except Ward. He doesn’t have any feelings because he’s a robot.
• Finally, one of 72 year-old guests, Jesse, had grown up watching and loving Leave it to Beaver. Jesse wanted his photo taken with Ward Cleaver. We sell facsimiles to the meerschaum pipe (blows bubbles) Ward received as a gift in Episode 9 (Season 2). Our guest purchased one and put it in Ward’s mouth for the photo. That would’ve been fine, but he lit a couple of dry leafs to make it look realistic for the photo. Unfortunately, the direct heat under Ward’s left eye “short-circuited”. This heat pressure ejected Ward Cleaver’s eye 40 yards forward at a blinding speed. This was followed shortly after by the his right eye. We absolutely understand that this caused significant emotional trauma to the 24 others on the 2:00 tour who were not yet aware that he was a robot.As we enter Phase II we will be looking for input from our Walk family on how we fine tune this incoming order of Super Robot Docs. We’ve had some ups and we’ve had some downs. But we’re thrilled with the potential to get more of our friends walking!