¶ Medical
So, you've chosen the path of the Physician, the Paramedic, the Brigmedic… the Doctor. But I bet if you're reading this, you're trying to figure how the exact hell you even begin knowing how to treat someone let alone fixing up the guy with no chest. Let's get you healing!
¶ Diagnosing troubles
The first step to any successful treatment is knowing what you need to treat. With Woundmed, it isn't just the damage type like in base content, but also broken bones and damaged or missing organs. Fortunately, like base content, you do have a solution - the Health Analyzer! In a pinch, any medical PDA will also have a MedTek package installed to act like an analyzer too.
If you don't have either however, you can simply look at someone then wound check by clicking the heart symbol on their Look popup. You won't numerically define the types of damage like an analyzer, but you can tell if someone's been burned, whacked, stabbed or drained of blood.
You can also acquire a MedHUD or med-patch that takes up your glasses spot in order to see the general health of patients in your sight. This can help with prioritising injuries.
¶ Damage types
There's multiple types of damage a body can take:
- The base physical types - Blunt, Pierce and Slash.
- Burn damage - Heat from fire or hot gases, Cold from the inverse, Shock from mishandled electrics and Caustic from mishandled acids or creatures.
- Toxin damage - Poison comes from poisonous critters and dubious sources of food or drinks and Radiation comes from singularities and sources of radioactivity like artifacts.
- Loss damage - Bloodloss comes from, wouldn't you know, not having blood whereas Airloss comes from lacking valid air to breathe (you can't breathe a standard atmos mix at Vox for example due to the oxygen in the air poisoning you, but if the atmos lacks nitrogen at all that will cause Airloss without internals).
- Cellular damage comes from mishandling things like Implanters or from body decay .
On top of that, you also have limbs, bones and organs to care for too:
- Arms and Hands allow you to hold and manipulate items and the environment.
- Legs and Feet allow you to stand and walk or run around.
- Your Head has your brain in it. Do the math.
- Your Groin connects your Legs to your Torso.
- Your Torso connects everything together and also has some of the important organs in it too.
- The Brain is you piloting that meat and bone automaton called a body.
- Your Heart pumps blood and allows for the body to metabolize things. In rotting bodies, replacing this can cure it allowing for resuscitation.
- Your Lungs lets you breathe. Different species lungs will metabolize different gases and replacing them can cure asphyxiation.
- Your Eyes let you see. Debatable use for the legally and actually blind, they can be damaged by bright continuous light. Replacement can cure blindness.
- Your Liver can slowly deal with poisons. Replacing it can cure major poison damage.
- Your Ass is irreplaceable. Rip Ass with a Mega Fart once at your own peril.
Bones themselves don't need replacement but can be damaged and require surgery to repair. Some bones like skulls and ribcages may need to be surgically removed temporarily to allow for other surgeries to take place.
¶ Critical State
If a target is critical, this is because it has typically taken half of the hitpoints it has to remain awake. In a critical state, the patient cannot move, act, speak or breathe and requires external intervention to cure or… well, kill. Different species will have different hitpoint amounts - a mouse is not as robust as a Xenomorph.
¶ Basic cures
Your most immediate options for curing the basic damage types are usually topicals.
Topicals can be applied to a patient directly, and will be applied to targeted limbs.
- Bruise packs repair all Brute damage, but does not cure bleeding.
- Ointment repairs all Burn damage, but cures some damage types like Caustic slower than others.
- Blood packs cure a lack of blood, preventing bloodloss damage over time.
- Gauze can cure bleeding, so you keep the blood you need. It can also help with a little bit of burn and slash damage
- Emergency medipens are a standard inclusion with every Nanotrasen survival kit and spares are often stocked in Medical too. They apply chemicals known as epinephrine and tranexamix acid. Epinephrine heals critical patients while tranexamic acid prevents bleeding.
You can usually dispense these from MedVends or print them from your MedFab. CMO also has shift start stock of advanced topicals, medicated sutures and meshes, that the Chemist can make if they know how and have the right equipment. You can always make gauze from rolls of cloth in a pinch.
Sometimes someone may be so injured that only surgery can cure it. If you're new to Medical, I recommend asking a Doctor to conduct the Surgery and tag along to learn. Learning Surgery can be vital for curing but also improving if Science does their job right.
¶ Sometimes you just need a good rest
Medical Beds can passively heal patients of some damage types like Brute over time so long as the patient lies in it.
Stasis Beds prevent rotting and slow down the metabolisation of chemicals. These typically see use for preventing bodies close to revival from rotting and being resuscitated immediately.
Do not sleep on these - they can save on chems use and even prevent crit patients from dying long enough for treatment.
¶ Advanced medicine
But maybe there's just too much damage for this crit guy to be healed through with topicals. Well, that's where medicine comes in!
¶ Medicines
Medicinal chemicals, or chems, can heal damage body wide. The only caveats is that they need to be metabolized internally and that overdosing chemicals can hurt more than it heals. The only difference between medicine and poison is intention.
- Brute can be healed with the bicaridine line of chems, salic acid or procenyl lazide.
- Burns can be healed with dermaline, the sigynate line of chems, oxandrolone or ebifin.
- Toxins can be healed with dylovene, hyronalin, arithazine, pentenic acid or syriniver.
- Loss damage types can be healed with dexalin plus and artiplates. The causes of loss damage can be healed with saline and being able to breathe, i.e. in an atmosphere and out of crit.
- Cellular can be healed by phalanximine.
These medicines can be applied by injection or ingestion - a syringe can be used even on patients wearing hardsuits or armour, but ingestion requires the patient to have open mouth access so no masks or helms.
Chemists will usually label jugs with the chemical, the overdose amount and what the chemical treats. These jugs can be found in a designated “chemical” locker, whether in bags or individually. Other Chemists may instead stock chemicals in their local ChemFridge for Medical staff to take. Chemistry can make a grand majority of chemicals to suit Medical's needs, but some chemicals are Botany only - ask CMO or Chemistry if they can ask Botany to acquire these chems if they're desired or needed.
Be warned - some chems like procenyl lazide, ebifin and syriniver will neutralize each other or in the case of puncturase, lacerinol and bruizine react to create other chemicals, and not typically good ones - the latter example of chems can create razorium, a toxin that causes slash damage and bleeding.
¶ Cryogenic Medicine and Cryopods
There are also cryogenic chemicals, or cryo chems, that only apply their effects when the patient's body is at a certain temperature. These are best applied in cryopods, medical pods designed explicitly for these chems to be used, but require set up to begin even thinking about using.
Cryopods maintain their own internal atmosphere separate from the station's and require a cooling method of some kind to ensure cryogenics medicine works. The equipment is typically provided shift start and only requires setup. Setting the freezer to 100 kelvin and turning it on, getting the air in via distro or by an air tank and setting the filters up to remove carbon and nitrous dioxide will typically be all that's needed. When set up properly, your temperature should drop in the cryopod without you or a patient suffocating.
If in doubt, ask about - an experienced CMO should know how cryogenics works but it can also be worth asking Doctors and Chemists about it too, especially as Chemists will be the source of chemicals you need for this.
By inserting a beaker of the chemical into the pod after inserting the patient into the pod, you can cure many injuries faster than many other chemicals employed as medicine can normally. Make sure the patient keep any clothes that might warm them off and be aware that some species have higher or lower internal temperatures. Lizards for example can't handle the cold as well as a human.
Make sure to monitor the chemical's application and remove the beaker from the pod when enough is applied - cryopods aren't smart about usage and will overmedicate but cryogenics chemicals don't have overdoses like other chems.
- Cryoxadone can heal Brute, Burn, and Loss damage from living patients.
- Aloxadone can heal Burn from living or dead patients.
- Doxarubixadone can heal Cellular, but not from dead patients.
- Necrosol can heal everything but Cellular from living or dead patients.
- Opporozidone can heal rotting patients, effectively treating Cellular in dead patients and making resuscitation possible.
- Leporazine can stabilize a body's temperature, which prevents the cold temperatures needed for these chemicals to be made viable, allowing for quick recovery from the cryopod.
These chemicals are also provided by Chemistry, dependent on each chemical, and are typically stored in Cryogenics. If in doubt, ask about - a Chemist or Doctor can tell you where to find it usually.
Some medicines require rare chemicals like omnizine and cognizine so be aware that some chemicals, while valuable, aren't always available!
Secret tip: even if it is set up, you can add other chemicals besides cryogenics for fast application as desired. Make sure to monitor, especially for medicinal chemicals with low overdose limits, if you do this!
¶ Contact chemicals
There's a rare set of chemicals - styptic powder and silver sulfaziade - that can be splashed or sprayed onto patients to treat injuries too. Paramedic may have these depending on the station at shift start, but chemistry can make these too given time. Do not inject these chemicals - they will poison the patient if metabolized.
¶ Auto-injectors
MedVends and MedFabs also grant access to department specific auto-injectors, allowing for immediate treatment of certain injures using auto-injector capsules. There are capsules for brute, burn, airloss and emergencies and each one describes what chemicals it has in it.
When starting out as an Intern or in cases without Chemists, it can be useful to have these on hand for when large quantities of people need treatment to allow for initial triage and preventing death. Just be aware, these autoinjectors do have cooldowns between uses.
¶ Death, and what to do
Sometimes a patient dies before the treatment works. Sometimes they're brought in dead. Who are we kidding, they're usually brought in dead.
¶ Who do I resuscitate?
Bodies without souls can be resuscitated but they will never regain consciousness again. This is because the player has attached themselves to a new role or left typically.
Rotted bodies cannot be resuscitated due to the Cellular damage it will sustain preventing it.
Some bodies may be so damaged that the invested resources and time simply aren't worth the effort. You may not even have the time.
Bodies that can't be resuscitated immediately should be put on either a Stasis Bed or in a Body Bag. Body bags preserve bodies without rot progressing. Stasis beds can do the same but should be used for bodies needing immediate treatment.
¶ How do I resuscitate?
You have several options depending on the situation:
- Applying topicals can put them below their dead threshold, allowing for resuscitation by defibrillator. Just be aware, some patients' physiologies can't take shocks from defibs and may require CPR or alternative methods.
- Patients can be cloned from intact dead bodies. Of course, if they're not intact or have certain genetic disorders, they might not be able to be revived this way.
- You can always take their brain and stick them in another more intact body or give them to Science for borging… assuming the brain is still there.
You can always apply CPR by opening the Verb Menu with right click, finding your patient's dropdown menu then choosing the “Start CPR" option. This will prevent rot while having a chance to resuscitate the patient if their damage is low enough. Know where defibrillators and cloning equipment are! Defibrillators run off batteries and may need recharging while cloning equipment needs biomass, which can be gained from “recycling” other bodies or from Botany, and some brief setup. (If it's broke, blame shitcode and try again).
Ensure bodies are protected from heat, as extreme heat can lead bodies to burn into ash. You can store bodies on Stasis Beds, in Body Bags or in Freezer crates to preserve a body for resuscitation.
If a body can't be revived, whether because of circumstance or crimes they've committed, then the body should be moved to the morgue to be placed on a slab. The Chaplain may also send the body off in a Coffin or cremate them for the crew to mourn in a service dependent on the Station.
¶ I'm still a bit confused…
That's OK - sometimes reading isn't the best way to learn. Liltenhead has several videos on medical that are still fairly pertinent, but there's also a video on GoobStation's iteration of medical featuring WoundMed that can help understand the targeting system a little more too. It also features surgery.
If you're still a bit doubtful, you can always ask a Doctor or CMO to teach you the ropes during a shift too. You'll often never run out of things to test healing and surgery on working on a high population shift, and even low population shifts will have random pests like mice and snails you can try to heal to get a grasp on medical.
¶ What about Surgery and Chemistry?
I could talk about those, but then the page would be longer than I feel is necessary for this. Which is why they're splintered off into their own pages!
You can find those respective guides here:
- https://wiki.goobstation.com/en/LRP/Guides/Surgery
- https://wiki.goobstation.com/en/LRP/Guides/Chemistry