A SCOTS doctor who helped devise one of the most dramatic scenes in the James Bond blockbuster Casino Royale could soon be using the same techniques to treat the cast and crew of the movie series.
James Ferguson, an emergency consultant at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, is one of a team of telehealth specialists responsible for the development of a virtual-reality doctor's surgery in a box – a dramatic breakthrough in the field of telemedicine.
In Casino Royale, 007 Daniel Craig drank a vodka martini laced with deadly poison and was forced to race back to his Aston Martin to contact doctors at MI6 to discover the antidote that saved his life.
Yesterday it was revealed that everything the super spy does to save his own life is based on telehealth advances first developed to help patients in Scotland's remotest communities.
Using the latest advances in computer and medical technology, doctors will soon be able to examine and diagnose the conditions of patients living hundreds of miles away – monitoring a patient's heartbeat, their temperature, blood pressure, and carrying out a number of detailed medical examinations without having to leave their surgeries.
And it was development of the telemedicine booth which provided Mr Ferguson and colleagues at the International Centre for Emergency Medicine with the idea for the dramatic scene featured in Casino Royale.
Mr Ferguson said: "We thought: 'Wouldn't it be great if James Bond fell ill and took telemedicine advice from us here in Aberdeen?' So we sat down and wrote an outline of a story where Bond gets poisoned and, using remote monitoring and video conferencing technology, his life is saved.
"We sent the outline off to the Bond producers and the next thing it was sent to the writers and they used it."
Mr Ferguson and his colleagues have also now been hired by the Bond film producers to provide remote medicine services to the cast and crew of the movie series. He explained: "We will be providing medical advice when they are filming in remote areas. And if Daniel or somebody else gets ill in deepest, darkest Chile, or wherever, they can give us a shout."
FACT BOXCRAIG'S near-death experience in Casino Royale was only the latest of many Bond brushes with the grim reaper.
• In Goldfinger, Sean Connery is tied to a table underneath an industrial laser, which slowly begins to slice the table in half. Bond manages to talk his way out by lying to Goldfinger that British Intelligence knows about a secret operation.
• Roger Moore's time appears up in Moonraker when he finds himself in the deadly grip of villain Drax's pet python. But he manages to escape with the use of a poison pen borrowed from CIA agent Holly Goodhead.
• Timothy Dalton has a machete at this throat as Licence to Kill nears an end, but manages to set villain Sanchez on fire with a lighter as they battle by a tanker lorry.
• Pierce Brosnan's nemesis in Goldeneye, Xenia Onatopp, is crushing him to death by wrapping her thighs around him. He shoots down her helicopter, and she is dragged to her death.
The full article contains 531 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
