Medical Doctor

One of many Jobs
Medical Doctor
Show me where it hurts
Alt-Titles
Surgeon, Emergency Physician, Nurse, Virologist
Department
Medical
Access
ETC, Chemistry, EMT Bay, Operating Rooms, Psych Room, Virology, Morgue, Maintenance, EVA
Duties
Keep the crew healthy, save lives
Supervisors
Chief Medical Officer
Difficulty
Underappreciated

The Medical Doctor as a role is an extremely important one. If you know what you're doing, as a Medical Doctor you will save lives. Nearly every death can be prevented, provided you reach the victim in time. Since Medical Doctors are the only ones with the tools and the in character experience to save them, Medical Doctors tend to make a lot of friends.

You should know what most chemical medicines are (not how to make them, although you could use the notes in Chemistry), so look that up on the Guide to Chemistry. It doesn't hurt to know what the other medical stuff does. But if you have a chemist that can make them, he can also tell you how to administer them.

Overview

You start with an advanced first-aid kit and a health analyzer. You main work will be in Medbay, where there are spares, vending machines with more supplies, and more specialized kits. There are also two syringe guns (a level 6 infraction in the presence of secuiritrons) which are fairly useless for healing people, leave them alone. You have some standard medication in the Medical Supplies room, though you should ask Chemistry for some more specialized ones.

As a Medical Doctor, your job is to heal people, save them from the brink of death, and bring those that do die in for resleeving. You can diagnose injuries with the help of a health analyzer, which you helpfully spawn with. Your PDA can also do a limited health readout. Technically, you and the rest of medical are the only ones who can understand the readout. Remember that the it's simplified so that your can understand it OOC.

In terms of your equipment, the general rule is that chemical treatment works at all health levels, whereas physical treatments have limits where they become ineffective. Rolls of gauze and ointment are for minor injuries, and so only work if the brute or burn damage total less than 50 HP. Advanced Trauma and Burn kits are more effective, and so work all the way to 0 HP. Beyond that, more advanced treatment is needed.

Health runs from 100% to -100%, and it's your job to make sure it doesn't hit the bottom end. Below are the main types of damages and treatments. See the Guide to Medicine for a more detailed overview.

Brute Damage

Whether it's from fists, bullets, or a kitchen knife, it's classified as Brute Damage. Brute Damage is inevitably the most common form of damage, and is easily treated.

There are two types of brute damage, bruises and wounds. Bruises are caused by blunt objects.They add to a persons brute damage, but unless particularly severe, they do not cause bleeding.

Wounds and cuts are caused by sharp objects, and cause bleeding, which can only be stopped with medical treatment.

If the patient is not in life-threatening danger, simply have them tell you where they were hit, use the body scanner in Medbay, or get them to strip off their jumpsuit and examine so you can see where. Apply gauze (for minor damage) or advanced trauma kits (for major damage) to affected areas and send them on their way.

Brute Damage takes the form of big red streaks, or blue-purple-red messes. Apply gauze or advanced trauma kits in those areas, inject with Tricordrazine or, in cases of a helpful Chemist and extreme damage, Bicaridine.

Blood Loss

See Also: A More Detailed Guide on Blood Loss

Living things have blood. Blood is quite important for them to keep living. Cuts and loss of limbs will cause various amounts of bleeding, which require rolls of gauze or advanced trauma kits to stop.

Blood level can be found on the health analyser read out with warnings when levels get too low. Loss of blood can cause fainting or paleness of skin. Blood can either be injected from a donor, or a donor pack can be placed in an IV Drip and connected to the patient.

When choosing a blood pack, find the patient's medical records either on the Patient Records computer in the lobby, or the "Patient Records" function on your PDA. As a quick reminder, A, B and + are types of markers on blood, O and - indicate a lack of said markers. Don't give someone markers they don't already have or they'll die. If that doesn't make sense to you, here's a chart of compatible blood types.

If you're unsure what blood type to use or the blood type of a patient, O- can be given to anyone. There is a limited supply, so only use it if absolutely necessary.

Burn Damage

The second type of damage is Burn Damage. This is caused by fires and blisteringly high or low temperatures, such as fire or space.

Burns work similar to wounds. Apply ointment or advanced burn kits to the affected area to heal it, or give them a kelotane pill. Chemicals take a few seconds to work, so don't waste supplies. For severe burns, give them Dermaline (a Chemist will be needed).

Burn Damage appears as grey streaks on a person's body, or you can use the various scanners to tell location, so apply ointment in those areas (usually the chest area).

Toxin Damage

Toxin Damage is the third kind of damage and is relatively uncommon.

Be it from a the aptly named toxin bottle, medicine overdoses, soporific, or radiation, Toxin Damage has no visible form, so can only be recognized via analyzing.

Inject with Dylovene, or give them Dylovene pills. This also shortens the time needed to wake someone up from Soporific or Chloral Hydrate.

Suffocation Damage

The last main kind of damage often occurs when a patient is in critical health (-50% Health), and is usually accompanied by a another type of damage.

Suffocation can be cured using Dexalin, Dexalin Plus, or plain fresh air (if the patient is not critical). If the patient is in critical condition, then heal the other damage, and the suffocation should recover naturally. CPR also recovers suffocation damage slowly if the patient is in critical (click on them with an empty hand with the help intent).

Inaprovaline halts Suffocation damage, but only when in Critical.

Uncommon Conditions

The above are the main types of damage people will receive. Other more unique damages and treatments can be found on the Guide to Medicine.

Genetic diseases can be cured by Ryetalyn or a Clean SE from your local Geneticist. So shake the chemist up and get a little to cure people.

Viruses and Diseases are in the domain of the Virologist. Scanning people with your health analyser might show an 'Unknown substance' in their blood stream, which may mean a virus, or just some chemicals. Either way, take a blood sample and pass it to your Virologist to analyze.

Give your infected patients Spaceacillin to slow the spread and keep them isolated. Wearing gloves and a sterile mask helps to stop anyone else getting infected.

Medical States

There are three type of medical states. The first is 'shock', which is the least dangerous of the three. If someone takes enough damage from each damage type, they may go into shock. This causes stammering and slow movement, and eventually collapsing and loss of consciousness. This can be cured by dealing with all the other types of damage, or temporarily by using tramadol.

The second is known as 'soft critical'. When someone is below 0% health (having taken more than 100 points of damage), they will suffer shock until they are above 0% health.

The third is known as 'critical' and occurs at -50% health (more than 150 points of damage). At this point, the patient will go unconscious, stop breathing, and take suffocation damage. This can be stopped with Inaprovaline or CPR. Chemical or Cryo treatment is usually necessary at this stage.

Surgery

You'll have to deal with broken bones, appendicitis, and autopsies. All of which can be performed by you, and only you (IC anyway) .

A guide to surgery is here.

Overdoses

Medicines are generally beneficial, however, more than 30 units of most medications will cause the patient to take large amounts of toxin damage. Sleepers are restricted to injecting 40 units of most chemicals, so caution should be exercised. Also note that most pills in standard medication kits are 15 units.

Notable absences from overdoses include Dylovene, Soporific, Tricordrazine, and Inaprovaline.

Modern Miracles

Cryogenics

Setting up Cryogenics is easy and simple.

Firstly, ensure the O2 canisters are connected to the ports. There's a wrench nearby to do this. Secondly, fill the tubes with Cryoxadone - beakers should be on the table. Then set the freezer to the minimum to start cooling the chamber down.

In order to use it for a patient, take off any temperature suits that have (RIG, Spacesuits, void suits, fire suits, etc.), grab them and put them in the cryo tube. Then turn it on and wait. You can monitor the patients vitals from outside. It's usually easier to strip all their items, and will allow cryo to cool them faster. Remember to eject them when they're better.

Medibots

Medibots no longer magically synthesize Tricordrazine, so you have to fill them for them to do any good. Good news for you! Or maybe not when people actually start dying.

Using your ID, you can alter his settings, and fill him with a beaker of Tricordrazine or Alkysine.

As a traitor, you can fill him with a beaker of Polytrinic Acid, or even Emag him. Once Emagged, the delightful little medibot buzzes around injecting everyone and everything with not-so-helpful chemicals.

Traitoring

There is so many wonderfully terrible things you can do. See that sleepy pen item? Guess what, when people get stabbed with those, they drag them to med bay to be "doctored" by you and other people. You can then take them some place private in Medbay, and take what you want or go for malpractice to end them. You can hide victims by putting little notes by morgue trays saying "This man has been cyborged" or "This man has been cloned" and no one will bat an eye at why they are naked, and why they are there. Usually.

Roleplay Tips

• You most likely have a decent knowledge of people and medicines. Use it to help people.
• Feel free to play a nice guy, or the next House. Just make sure people get healed, it's what you're there for after all
• Remember that there are many fields of knowledge in the world of medicine
• There are many other things that need real-life treatment that are not developed in-game, if someone comes to the medical bay saying that "They feel a headache" don´t just scan them and say: "There´s no damage on you, you are perfectly fine". Try to roleplay these scenarios, but don´t forget emergencies are more important.
• If you are performing a scene and someone calls for medical attention, remember that you could be fired if they find you were not doing your job in a time of need, evalaute the situation and act accordingly.
• Nurses normally welcome people in the medical bay reception and attend their needs, doctors then usually are the ones that attend the patients with the help of the nurses, these are just job statements, if your character is a nurse, but has enough knowledge to perform surgery, that´s up to you.
• Performing surgery is usually done with a team or a partner, usually nurses or other surgeons. If no one is able to help with surgery, you should at least inform the rest of the medical team of what you are doing, unless it´s an illegal procedure, of course.
• Remember that medicine is not easy, in your text messages you could read something like: "No damage detected" or "You saw through the bones" but in real life you´d be shitting bricks if you had to either decipher the readings of a scanner or if you had to open a ribcage with a saw.
• FILLING PEOPLE WITH CHLORAL HYDRATE IS NOT REALISTIC

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