Medical Doctor

MEDICAL STAFF

Medical Doctor

Alternative Titles: Physician, Surgeon, Nurse, Medical Resident, Attending Physician, General Practitioner Access: Medbay, Morgue, Surgery Additional Access: Chemistry Lab, Genetics Lab, Mineral Storage Difficulty: Medium Supervisors: Chief Medical Officer Duties: Save lives, mitigate disease outbreaks, scan everyone in sight Guides: Guide to medicine, Guide to Wounds, Suit Sensors, Guide to Surgery Minimum Age: 26 Quote: You have a bag full of xeno organs and gadgets of dubious legality you'd like implanted? Sure! Come on in!

Medical Doctors fill a tricky role aboard the station, and are somewhat outpaced by the march of medical technology. With the advent of cloning, saving lives is no longer as all important as it used to be, as death can effectively be made temporary. However, it is your goal to prevent your fellow crew members from getting to the point of needing to be turned into a duplicate of themselves. You are the first line of defense. Your department employs Medical Doctors like yourself, a Psychiatrist, Geneticists, Paramedics, Virologists, Chemists, and a Chief Medical Officer and is often tasked with solving many of the station's problems. When you begin a shift as a Medical Doctor, you will spawn with a First-Aid Kit in the station's Medbay.

Bare minimum requirements: Attempt to diagnose and fix injuries to the best of your ability.

MEDIC!

Medbay

As a Medical Doctor, your primary function is to heal the injured and save them from the brink of death. If this fails, you are expected to drag those that perish into Cloning to be reborn (or utilize another method of resurrection). You have a powerful tool at your disposal that can diagnose injuries and diseases in the form of a Health Analyzer, conveniently located in all medical kits, including the one you have at round start.

Utilizing the Health Analyzer will give you a readout of all the ailments a patient is suffering from, and a quick overview of all the damage types and simple treatments is found below. To facilitate conservation of consumable supplies in treatment, it is recommended to bring the patient into Medical and put them in a Sleeper Pod, which you can then use to slowly heal them of brute and burn damage, only requiring power to do so. Be aware that Sleepers, much like every other piece of technology on the station, can be upgraded by the Science department to be able to heal toxin and organ damage as well.

Physical Trauma

Regardless of if an implement is as sharp as a kitchen knife, or as puncturing as a bullet, the damage it will cause is classified as Brute Damage. Due to this wide range of applying forces, Brute Damage is inevitably the most common form of damage, and proper treatment thereof is crucial. A patient suffering from enough Brute Damage will visually have large bloody red streaks on their body or massive purple-red bruises, and an examination will confirm this. Brute damage is often treated through the use of sutures, healing chemicals such as libital, and brute patches. Your starter First Aid Kit has a pile of sutures inside it, and you can get patches and chemicals from the vendors located around medical, as well as chemistry.

Blood Loss

Brute damage can also cause bleeding, which is covered in the guide to medicine more extensively. To put it concisely, if a patient has brute damage, first diagnose if they are bleeding, as that will cause more complications if it continues unabated. If they are bleeding, you can inject the patient with an epinephrine pen, or if you lack one, wrap the wound in gauze (located in your First Aid Kit). More often than not, a patient will be able to recover their lost blood over time (a healthy diet will speed this process up). Still, if the Health Analyzer reports a LOW or CRITICAL blood level, or the patient says that they are feeling lightheaded or look pale, they will need a blood transfusion. If attempting a transfusion, be sure to give the patient the correct type of replacement blood, or you may end up harming them further - the Health Analyzer will provide a blood type readout, as will the patient's medical record file.

Burn Trauma

The second most common type of damage is Burn Damage. This is caused by a multitude of sources, from fire and inhospitably high (or low) temperatures to laser blasts to standing in space unprotected. Burn Damage visually manifests as grey streaks on a person's body, which can be hard to see on more thoroughly dressed up individuals. Burn damage is often treated by Aiuri, regenerative mesh, or the application of Silver Sulfadiazine/Burn Patches. Your starter First Aid Kit also has two packages of regenerative mesh inside it, and Aiuri and burn patches can be found in vendors located throughout medbay.

Toxins and Poisons

Toxin Damage is the third type of damage, and is somewhat less commonplace than any of the others. Plasma, radiation, and severe alcohol poisoning all increase toxin levels, at varying effectiveness, as well as other methods.

Regardless of how the damage is accrued, it is dangerous in that it has no visual tell. Individuals suffering from poisoning will appear just the same as anyone else, aside from their decaying health and potential fits of vomiting. Toxin Damage is also marginally more involved to treat than Brute and Burn, as the Sleeper Pods, unless upgraded by science, have no way to treat it. As such, these cases will necessitate a trip into Medical Storage to grab a Toxins Treatment Kit, which will contain Charcoal syringes and pills; differing ways to administer the same treatment.

If a patient has Toxin Damage, it is also prudent to use the chemical scan functionality on your Health Analyzer on them (click the Analyzer in your active hand to change between scanning physical and chemical health). If they are actively suffering from poisoning, continue to administer Charcoal or Anti-Toxin - both will reduce Toxin Damage and remove other chemicals from the patient - until the offending substance is purged from their bloodstream and their Toxin Damage is reduced to zero.

Suffocation and Asphyxiation

The fourth kind of damage deals with oxygen and a lack thereof. Suffocation Damage often occurs when a patient is in critical health and is rendered unable to breathe as they bleed out, or it is caused by having entered into an air deficient environment, such as space. If a patient is suffocating, take a moment to identify the root source instead of merely treating the symptom. If the Health Analyzer shows that the patient has over 100 total damage, they are likely in critical condition and are dying. A quick injection of Epinephrine (which is contained in the emergency medical injector in your First Aid Kit) can help reduce the amount of Suffocation Damage they have, as well as typically preventing more from accumulating, allowing you to treat their other damage, or perform CPR to reduce their Suffocation Damage faster, and ultimately stabilize them.

Suffocation can also be chemically treated through Salbutomal, and Perfluorodecalin, as well as other medicines. Perfluorodecalin acts much faster, but it has drawbacks of inflicting toxin damage and having an overdose threshold. In contrast, Salbutomal acts slowly but surely with no drawbacks and has no overdose threshold.

NOTE: Suffocation Damage can also be gained through having a low or critical blood level! Depending on how critical the deficiency of blood is, a transfusion may be in order, as is detailed in the above Blood Loss section.

Organ Damage

The fifth and final kind of damage is relatively rare and deals with internal organs. Typically, organs inside a healthy living body will continue to function normally (and will regenerate any damage over time so long as the person is healthy and well-fed), so they aren't usually a point of concern. However, in some instances, such as an overweight patient, severe alcohol overdose, or death, organs will decay. This can complicate revival procedures and will have lingering effects post-revival.

There are six internal organs that matter: the heart, the brain, the lungs, the liver, the stomach, and the appendix. For a complete guide on treatment procedures and the negative impacts that damage of each cause, please see this page.

Medical Storage and Tools

This is a more secure location inside of the Medical department, and houses much of the various equipment you'll need to perform your job. One important tool of which is the Health Scanner HUD. These eyepieces passively perform scans of the vitals of those within your range of sight, allowing you to see bars over people's heads which indicate their general state of health. Not only is this useful for locating higher priority wounded patients in a crowd, but the blue cross icon affixed to the displayed bar will change if the patient is detected as having a Disease or Virus, if they can be defibrillated, or if they are carrying an unwanted passenger.

The lockers in Storage contain a full set of medical equipment, from Nitrile Gloves, to a Medical HUD, to a Defibrillator, so it is always advisable to suit up when beginning your shift. Additionally, other various Medical equipment and clothing are available from the vending machine in storage, and there is a biosuit available for if a biohazard situation should arise.

There is also a glass case filled with four of each type of specialized treatment kit: Burn, Brute, Toxins, Suffocation, and four general First Aid Kits. This is very often a target of looters, so be sure that only Medical personnel are allowed in the storeroom, or you may find the supply stockpile severely diminished when your back is turned.

Additional useful tools and medication can be purchased (for free with a Medical ID) from the Medical Vending Machines located in Medbay, such as the Handheld Crew Monitor, which allows you to observe the vital signs of all crew that have their jumpsuit Vitals Sensors engaged.

Stasis Beds

Not directly used for healing, but indispensable for advanced treatment. When laid on a stasis bed, a patient will have slower life ticks, unless it is fully upgraded then it will completely stop them. In the simplest terms, this means that all their life functions, metabolism (including reagents and oxygen usage), breathing, disease progression, organ decay, bleeding and catastrophic combustion reactions with oxygen in the air, are put on pause.

Slowing organ decay is one of the more important uses; stopping it completely with a fully upgraded capacitor. If someone is dead, you can put them here so their heart decays more slowly. Stasis also stops poisons and any damage if the patient lacks functioning lungs or breathable air. There are very few ways for people to suffer damage or die while in stasis. You don't want anyone to die, do you?

Things that stasis does not stop:

• Direct attacks

• Surgical tissue damage and healing.

• Pressure damage.

• Xenomorph embryos.

• Changeling eggs

• Nanites.

For the most part, if they work when the patient is alive as well as when they're dead, they work when the patient is in stasis. Necrotic metabolism in viruses, however, does not bypass stasis.

Keep in mind that while in stasis, people can't naturally regenerate or process healing chemicals, so it's not all good.

Surgery

Every variant of Medical comes with an Operating Theatre attached to it. This room contains an operating table, a surgical procedures computer, a full set of surgery tools, and an anesthetic cabinet with tanks and masks. Surgery is an integral part of playing Medical Doctor, and you will often be expected to help reattach severed limbs, treat brain traumas, remove appendixes, or liposuction the fat off of overweight crew members.

For a complete guide to Surgery, please see the guide located here.

Cryogenic Cells

One of the most important developments of modern medical history is the creation of the Cryogenics system. Every Medical department comes equipped with one to two enormous Cryogenic Cells, and these devices simplify treating even the most wounded of patients down to pressing a few buttons, though they will need to be initially set up and maintained throughout the course of their service.

Cryogenics tubes need a few crucial pieces to function, the first of which is Cryoxadone. Cryoxadone is a powerful regenerative chemical, but it only functions when the patient is at extremely low temperatures, which will be addressed shortly. A few spare beakers of Cryoxadone should be located near the Cryogenic Cells at the start of the round for quick insertion, but with too much use they will need to be replaced by Chemistry. Also note that cryoxadone, when in your system, will make you dizzy and drop items.

Next, turn on the freezer attached to the Cryogenics pipe network and set the temperature as low as possible. This will cause patients in the cells to plummet in temperature, activating the healing properties of the Cryoxadone. With default keybinds you can ctrl click then alt click the freezer to both turn it on and turn the temperature to the lowest possible setting.

Next, you need to hook the nearby Oxygen canisters into the pipe network to make sure the patient doesn't drown inside the cell when it is flooded with Cryoxadone-laced water. Grab the nearby Medical Wrench and simply click on the tanks to tie them in to the pipe network. As with Cryoxadone, these canisters will need to be replaced with too much use, as their contents will empty out.

Your Cryogenics Cells are now prepped and ready for use!

For proper usage, be sure to have a patient strip down to their underwear (or do this for them, if they are unable) to facilitate faster lowering of internal temperature. From there, have the person enter the cell (or drag them on to it if they are incapacitated), close the cell, and turn it on. The cell will begin the treatment, and it will auto-eject the patient when they have recovered. You can also monitor the progression of their treatment by interacting with the closed cell - if their health is improving, all is well, but if that is not the case then you need to pop them out and reassess your treatment method.

NOTE: CRYOGENIC TREATMENT WILL NOT HEAL ALL RACES. PRETERNIS WILL BE UNAFFECTED BY IT, AND SLIMEPEOPLE WILL BE HARMED BY THE FREEZING TEMPERATURE!

Emergency Triage

If your patient is in critical condition, you have to work fast. Immediately apply epinephrine to prevent the patient from dying to Suffocation, then place medical gauze on any bleeding wounds, and take them to Medical if you aren't there already. Depending on the severity of their critical state, it is up to your discretion whether the Sleeper Pods or Cryogenics is where they need to go, though Cryogenics is recommended in these situations. If neither the Sleepers nor Cryogenics are available due to a power outage or something of that nature, you have to use what you have on-hand. If you have another person with you, have them begin CPR while you use your First Aid Kit to apply mesh or sutures to stabilize the individual.

The Spark of Life

If triage was unsuccessful and you now have a patient that has died recently, you may be able to use a defibrillator to revive them on the spot. Two defibrillators are available in the lockers in Medical Storage, two more are available in the Paramedic's Office, and a more portable version is available in the locker of the Chief Medical Officer.

To use a normal defibrillator, remove your backpack or satchel, and put the defibrillator on your back. Click its icon to grab the paddles off of it, then empty your other hand and click the paddles in hand to wield them in both hands, then click on the patient while targeting their chest. Note: if patients are wearing thick suits, such as a fire suit or a hardsuit, the shock will not pass through it, so make sure to strip off any protective outerwear they may have on before attempting a defibrillation.

In order to successfully revive a patient, several criteria must be met:

1. The patient must not be dead for more than 15 minutes.

2. The patient must not have over 180 Brute or Burn damage. (179 Brute Damage and 179 Burn Damage is fine, so long as it doesn't exceed more than 180 of a single type)

3. The patient's internal organs must be in a healthy enough state to support defibrillation. (The heart will be decayed after 5 minutes postmortem, but can be replaced, or given a Coronary Bypass to restore function)

3. The patient must not be a suicide. (Examining the body will inform you of this condition)

4. The patient must not be catatonic. (Examining the body will inform you of this condition)

5. The patient must not have clicked the Do Not Resuscitate button. (Their ghost will get dragged back into their body)

If all these factors are met, then the patient will be brought back from death! However, this does not mean that death is no longer a concern. Instead, your patient will likely still be deep in critical condition, as a successful revival only removes a small amount of each damage type. They must quickly receive medical attention to be kept alive. Additionally, while the individual is dead, scan them with your Health Analyzer or your PDA to check how they died. If they have poison in their body, they will still have them there post revival, as chemicals remain in bodies after death, but do not metabolize.

Medibots and You

Medibots are a product of Robotics, and can make your job much easier if applied correctly.

Using your ID, you can alter a medibots settings, giving them patrol routes, making them stand still, or replacing the chemical that they will automatically try to flit around and inject people with. It is recommended to give them something more powerful, such as Omnizine (while being careful about the dosing threshold values) and then sticking them in the Medical lobby, as this will provide a potent stationary healing machine for those that walk in.

Tips

• You can use a health analyzer on a body to see the time of death.
• Sutures and mesh have 15 uses, but only heal 10 damage each use.
• Eye surgery can fix completely blind eyes but require you to take off anything on their heads.
• Raw carrots, carrot cake, and carrot fries, all contain Oculine, which heals eye damage quickly and cures vision of any ailment, except those created by brain traumas, Genetics, or roundstart quirks.
• Prescription glasses can nullify nearsightedness while worn, but will have no effect after you go fully blind.
• You can clone people that have been turned into an alien, by extracting the alien's brain and shoving it into a human body.
• You can drag&drop people onto the Cryogenics Cells or the Sleepers. This will also close the tube/sleeper right away.
• A fully upgraded Cloner negates clone damage and mental deficiencies. It can also clone suicides and husks.
• The sleepers in medbay will show any chemical in the patient’s body, not just the chemicals you can inject them with. The same applies to advanced health analyzers.
• Showers (wrenched to be cold) work just as well as cryo, as long as you have Cryoxodone in your system.
• An organ harvester is a useful machine for medical, and can be built to harvest organs from dead clones or other bodies.
• Chemicals DO NOT metabolize while people are on a stasis bed or dead!
• To remove thralled or zombie infected parasites, you must surgically target the head with drapes for organ manipulation.
• It is possible to prevent zombie tumor victims from turning before receiving proper surgical care with the use of charcoal.
• A surgical appendectomy requires you to target the target's groin with drapes.
• Irradiated crewmembers should be given a shower as soon as possible to prevent the spread of radiation.
• You will be forced to conduct Coronary Bypass surgery during a shift sooner or later. This must be done when a patient's heart has reached over 60 damage. Can only be done once per heart.
• Using a Health analyzer allows you to see the patient's blood type.
• The blood type O- can be used to treat every other blood type in a transfusion except for lizards who have the L blood type which is the only one that’s not compatible with O-.
• Unstable mutagen can be used to duplicate any blood type great for restocking the blood crate.
• Changelings under fake death stasis cannot be revived with conventional methods.
• Tend Wounds (Mixture) surgery can be used to both fix brute damage and burn damage all at the same time making surgery faster than a sleeper.
• While doing DNA recovery, make sure to apply the rezadone with a syringe or it will not finish the step.
• The CMO has a wall-mount defibrillator inside their locker. This along with cyro is medbay’s source of power and must be put up immediately.
• Your medical surgical kit that starts in your bag shift-start contains enough surgery tools to complete tending surgeries.
• Unlike regular defibrillation, Revival surgery requires that you target the head with the defibs to complete the step.
• The Preternis blood type, U, is compatible with every race and blood type.

Hello, I'm Dr. Death

Being a Traitor Medical Doctor provides a fascinating opportunity. When people are injured, they are taken to Medical to be "doctored" by you and other people. Once there, they are under your control - you can then shoot them up with poisons, give them debilitating brain injuries, literally take their brain out and trash it, or go for malpractice to simply end them. You can hide victims by putting little notes on Morgue trays saying "This man has been borged" or "This man has been cloned" and no one will bat an eye at why they are naked, and why they are there, and often the chaplain will cremate them, or the chef will take some meat.

Tips for Traitoring

• The stethoscope can be used to break into the safe, located in the Vault.
• You can replace the Cryoxadone in the Cryogenic Cells with any chemical.
• If science happens to gain illegal tech research, you can print syringe guns at the departmental lathe. Fill a bluespace syringe up with Chloral Hydrate, Mute Toxin and Morphine to sedate someone.
• If a miasma disease is spread around, medbay is expected to do something about it. Since most people don't carry a health analyzer on them, you can simply say someone is sick with a miasma disease and inject them with a syringe full of the "cure." If you're smart (or at least think the player you're poisoning is smart), you should only pull this on people actually sick with a miasma disease so you can point to their symptoms as proof of a disease.
• You can hide items in the department linen box.
• With combat mode on, then disarming someone with right click, emagged defibrillators act like a lesser version of a stun baton. It inflicts 50 stamina damage along with a 10 second knockdown; in most cases, you'll need to hit someone three times in order to stop them from moving.
• With combat mode on, emagged defibrillators can give someone a heart attack. It will also inflict 50 burn damage and a 10 second paralyze. The time to fully complete this process is 6 seconds. Keep in mind that the defibrillator message will be different and could alert those around you in case you try to do this in public.
• Muzzles can be used to keep people from using the scream emote, useful for if someone is being too loud and trying to garner attention.
• Stasis beds can be emagged, resulting in them requiring a person to unbuckle them if they want to lie on them, or they will remain trapped forever.
• You can use implant removal surgery to get rid of high-ranking authority's mindshield, leaving them open to be mindslaved or hypnotized.
• You can acquire morphine in the medical vendor. Mix this with pan galactic gargle blaster from the bar and it'll create neurotoxin.

To Conclude

You are a Doctor. Your job is to help people - sometimes forcibly - and deal with the fallout from the numerous violent calamities that inevitably descend on the station. You serve both as a go-between for the station at large and the more specialized Medical departments. Medical is a challenging and thankless place to work. People will only acknowledge your existence when they have a need for your services, and even then, they will shove their way past you to put themselves in a Sleeper Pod and demand attention. Additionally, individuals will often seek Medical's supplies, such as soap, space cleaner bottles, and syringe guns. You're a likely target in an attack on the station, as wiping out the ability to heal and clone significantly cripples the station. People will often grab supplies from the Medical vending machines and leave without a word, only stopping to yell profanities at you when you try and stop them. It can be discouraging and crushing work, especially when a rush of injured people all pour in at once and do nothing but scream at you to help them first, or when a viral outbreak occurs and your department is swamped by rioting plagued people. But being a Medical Doctor can be full of rewards, such as seeing someone who came through the doors nearly dead walk out unassisted in perfect health thanks to your intervention, or getting a heartfelt thank you from the Botanist after you stitched his legs back on.

If you seek respect in this job, you have to go out of your way to earn it. Prove yourself to be a cut above the rest. For many, you are the thin line between life and death, so remember the gravity of your position, and apply yourself as best as you can.