Guide to medicine
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Chief Medical Officer Kingston says: "Doctor! I need you to tear out that man's appendix, throw that clown out of medical, and stitch up that librarian's face!" |
Medical care is serious business, and going halfway with your medical treatment can result in someone dying... or worse. Make sure you know what you're doing before you try to fix someone up!
If you're going to treat someone, you're going to have to know what tools you need, how to identify injuries, what machinery and facilities you must use, and how to keep people from dying while in treatment.
Identification
First of all, grab a 
Health Scanner HUD from the medical storage and wear it. It shows the patient's overall health condition and therefore shows you instantly who you should treat first from a group of patients. Identification is the first and foremost step in administering treatment. Here are ways to identify the type of injuries a person may have:
Six types of damage
- Humans can be hurt in six different ways: Suffocation, brute, burn, toxin, cellular, brain damage.
- You want the patient to be as healthy as possible, so you have to heal all of these, and they have to be treated individually (unless you use a chemical which heals multiple damage types at once).
- The overall health status (from 100% to -100%) is determined by adding these damages together, except brain damage. If there are 0 damages, the patient is perfectly healthy (100%).
- If the patient has taken summarily 100 damage, he will be in a critical condition (0%); lying on the ground, unresponsive and gasping for air. When in this condition, the patient cannot breathe on their own and will gradually take suffocation damage until death (-100%). This kills the patient.
- You can identify these different damage types easily by using your PDA with the Med-U Cartridge inside and Health Scanning enabled, or a Health Analyzer on the patient. You can also examine the patient (shift-click), but it only shows basic information.
- If a Health Analyzer or a PDA with a Med-U Cartridge is not available, observing the patient and their surroundings will help with diagnosis:
- If there is a pile of vomit next to, or under the patient then they are most likely suffering from toxin damage.
- If there is blood everywhere, blood on the person dying, or the patient has severe bruises, they are suffering from brute damage.
- If the patient has black scars across their body and no blood, or the patient has severe burns, they have been severely burned.
- If the patient has none of the above, they are most likely just suffocating.
Your first patient
Your patient can arrive in two ways:
1. The patient walks in and needs treatment.
- "PLS DOC HLEP!!" You can see the patient's overall health status with your Health Scanner HUD with just a glance, however this will only tell you how serious the situation is and how quickly you need to act.
- How to act:
- Use your PDA or a Health Analyzer on the patient to identify the damage type.
- Proceed with the necessary treatment found in the next chapter.
2. The patient is dragged into Medbay and is in critical condition.
- The patient is unresponsive to the environment, on the floor, and gasping for air.
- How to act:
- The first thing you should do is administer Epinephrine. Epinephrine stops the general decline of the critical patient's health, but does not treat the wounds, meaning toxic damage will continue to mount if it's present.
- If Epinephrine is not present, immediately perform CPR at least a few times to ensure the patient stays alive until you do the following step.
- NOTE: CPR on it's own will not heal someone unless they are only suffering from suffocation damage. If they are in crit BECAUSE of burn/brute/toxins it will only keep them from dying. Remember to drag someone to the Medbay whilst administering CPR instead of sucking their face in the hallway for ten minutes like an idiot.
- Now you have two options:
- Strip the patient's space suit off if they have one and put the patient into a cryochamber, wait for them to heal up and eject.
- Or (if you are a robust enough doctor) quickly identify the damage type and apply the needed treatment (found in next chapter), this is a much faster method but has its risks.
Treatment
Suffocation
This is the first and most important to look out for. It is not visible on the body, but people suffering it will gasp for air. On the Health Analyzer, it is the leftmost, blue damage type.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Being in an area without enough oxygen present will slowly suffocate you.
- Once you are in critical condition, you can't breathe and will suffocate.
- Lexorin deals very high amounts of suffocation damage.
- Cyanide deals very high amounts of suffocation damage.
- Zombie powder deals some suffocation damage.
Treatment:
- If a person is in crit, you can CPR them. Remove your and patient's masks and helmets, switch to help intent and click on them.
- If a person is not in critical condition, and they have no bad chemicals in their bloodstream, placing them in an oxygen-filled area will suffice.
- Epinephrine prevents the person from taking more suffocation damage, but does not treat it.
- Salbutamol slowly treats suffocation damage. It also binds lexorin very quickly.
- Perfluorodecalin instantly heals all suffocation damage.
- Cryoxadone in a cryotube or a very cold environment heal most types of damage, including suffocation.
- Orange juice isn't the most effective cure, but it does help a bit when no other options are available
Brute Damage
This is a straight-forward damage category. This is far right damage type on Health Analyzer. Brute wounds are visible, and limb specific.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Being physically hit by almost anything is brute damage.
- Some chemicals deal brute damage, namely chlorine, arithrazine and lexorin.
Treatment:
- Bruise packs can be applied to the damaged limb. Use a medical scanner or ask the patient to examine themselves.
- Styptic powder and synthflesh heals brute damage.
- Saline-glucose solution heals brute slowly.
- Cryoxadone in a cryotube or a very cold environment heal most types of damage, including brute.
- Food can heal brute damage slowly.
- Milk, bilk, soy milk, soy latte, cafe latte, and cream can heal it very slowly.
- There are some job-specific ways of healing it: donuts heal security, bananas and banana juice heal clowns and monkeys, "nothing" in mime's bottle of nothing heals mimes.
Bleeding
- After a limb sustains 30 brute damage, it will start bleeding.
- IVs and gauze will temporarily provide relief from bleeding.
Treating bloodloss:
- Bandage wound to stop bleeding.
- Locate brute damage.
- Treat brute damages above ~30 to halt bleeding.
- Assess blood levels, if low or critical, proceed with blood transfusion.
- If blood transfusion unavailable, blood will be naturally produced by the body, albeit slowly.
Blood transfusion:
- Use medical scanner on patient to find blood type.
- Obtain blood pack from surgery, virology, or cargo.
- Attach blood pack to IV drip.
- WARNING: Incorrect blood types are toxic to the patient!
- Ensure the drip is on 'give' blood and not 'take' blood by right clicking it.
- Click-drag IV drip onto patient.
- Check up on patient's blood levels regularly, this process moves quickly.
- Detach patient from IV drip by click-dragging the IV drip onto him again or simply clicking the IV.
- Detach blood pack by clicking on the IV drip.
Blood donation:
- Attach empty blood pack to IV drip.
- Ensure IV drip is on "take" mode by right clicking it.
- Attach to a donor by click+dragging it onto the donor.
- Blood pack will automatically fill. alarm will sound if patient's blood levels reach critical.
- Detach IV drip by click+dragging it onto the donor again or simply clicking the IV.
- Click on IV drip to eject blood pack, label appropriately.
Burns
This is a straight-forward damage category. This is the damage type second to the right on Health Analyzer. Burns are visible, and limb specific.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Temperature too high or too low causes burn damage. That includes coldness of space and being set on fire.
- Lazers deal burn damage.
- Thermite deals burn damage if taken internally, but it is a very rare case.
Treatment:
- Ointments can be applied to the damaged limb. Use a medical scanner or ask the patient to examine themselves.
- Silver sulfadiazine and synthflesh heal burn damage.
- Saline-glucose solution heals burn slowly.
- Cryoxadone in a cryotube or a very cold environment heal most types of damage, including burn.
- Tomato juice can heal it very slowly.
- There are some job-specific ways of healing it: donuts heal security, bananas and banana juice heal clowns and monkeys, "nothing" in mime's bottle of nothing heals mimes.
Toxins
This is the second from the left on the Health Analyzer. It is not visible, and usually people will have no clue they are poisoned (unless they're vomiting profusely). Thankfully it is easy to treat.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Breathing plasma deals toxic damage.
- Many chemicals deal toxic damage.
- Drinking a lot of alcohol deals toxic damage.
- Synaptizine deals light toxic damage.
- High doses of radiation deal toxic damage.
Treatment:
- Mind the difference between chemical named "toxin" and toxic damage: the chemical deals toxic damage as long as it is present in bloodstream. Anti-toxins purge toxins and heal the damage. In extreme cases the person might be taking toxic damage faster than the anti-toxin can heal it! In these cases, you need to prioritise purging the toxic chemicals.
- Anti-toxin (Charcoal) heals toxic damage and slowly purges toxic chemicals.
- Pentetic acid heals toxic damage and purges toxins more quickly than charcoal, but deals some brute damage.
- Calomel purges toxic chemicals more quickly than pentetic acid but doesn't heal toxic damage, and will deal toxic damage if the patient has 20 health or more.
- Cryoxadone in a cryotube or a very cold environment heal most types of damage, including toxic.
- Lime juice, tea, iced tea can slowly heal it.
- Vomiting heals some toxic damage. You can't control it, though.
Cellular damage
Rare kind of damage. It shows up on scanners and is visible on examination but exact numbers aren't shown. Causes overall health status being lower.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Slimes. They deal cellular damage when they feed on someone.
- Cloned people will have cellular damage, unless the cloner is fully upgraded and the cloning was 100% complete.
Treatment:
- Cryoxadone in a cryotube or a very cold environment heal most types of damage, including cellular.
- Rezadone also heals cellular damage, and does not require cryotube, but hard to get.
Keep in mind that cellular damage is not related to genetic disabilities! They are different things, and must be treated separately!
Brain damage
Nasty, makes people say stupid things and clunk their heads into airlocks, along with blacking out and an inability to use machinery.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Imperfect cloning.
- Mercury and impedrezene
- Chaplain's bible applied to the head.
Treatment:
- Mannitol pills or injections.
Using Sleepers and Cryogenics
Sleeper
Sleepers are a very important part of the medbay. They allow you to inject various chemicals, and have unlimited stocks of them. Always use sleepers over pills, patches and especially bruise packs and ointments! They are mostly used by field medics, or when cryogenics treatment is not available. Keep in mind that when the patient's health is very low, sleepers become unusable, with the exception of epinephrine.
Sleepers also show you chemicals present in person's bloodstream.
Scientists can produce upgraded parts for sleepers. See here how upgrading will make your life much easier.
How to use:
- Ensure the sleeper is open. If it's not, open it.
- Pull the patient near the sleeper.
- Click and hold on the patient, move the cursor to the sleeper, then release. This puts the patient inside.
- Click on the sleeper to open the menu.
- Inject chemicals they need (note: these are the non-upgraded chemicals):
- Epinephrine: Prevents further suffocation damage. Useful if someone is about to die.
- Morphine: Puts person to sleep after some time.
- Saline-Glucose Solution: Heals brute and burn damage slow over time.
- Salbutamol: Heals suffocation damage.
- It's not necessary to wait now, open the sleeper and kick them out.
Cryogenics Tube
Cryotube uses the fact that cryoxadone are extremely effective at healing all types of damage, but only work in cold environments. Use it when patient is in crit, and sleeper is not helping, when they have toxic damage and you're too lazy to get charcoal, or when they suffer from cellular damage.
Cryotubes can also be upgraded by science parts. Better matter bins allow them to work slightly faster and more efficiently.
How to prepare (This needs to be done at the start of every round!):
- Wrench O2 canister.
- Turn on the freezer. Set it to lowest temperature available.
- Load beakers with chemicals. A common and highly effective mix for general use is cryoxadone and mannitol.
- All chemicals will work, you can add anything. For example, adding saline-glucose solution will speed up healing of non-cellular damage, fluorosulfuric acid is a cruel and hilarious way to kill people. This is the job of chemists.
How to use:
- Ensure the tube is open first. If not, open it.
- Pull the person next to the tube
- Remove all clothes that prevent freezing, such as hardsuits.
- Click on them with your mouse and drag their sprite to the tube.
- Open the tube menu and turn it on
- When healing is complete, turn it off and open
- Shake the person to get them up (switch to help intent and click on them)
- Let them redress (Or do it for them) then kick them out.
Rarer Cases
These situations are not as common as normal damages, but they are still VERY LIKELY to happen. AND most of these cases are also more severe, and it is essential to be fucking fast and know this stuff!
So read up, these are the things that will separate quacks from real doctors!
Overdose
Giving too much of some chemicals or drugs can cause an overdose. This mean that you aren't doing your job correctly and you may even kill the patient if you don't stop doing it!
Chemicals that can overdose:
- Omnizine: 30u (Really deadly)
- Salicyclic Acid 25u
- Ephedrine 45u (Addiction at 30u)
- Morphine 30u (Addiction at 25u)
- Atropine 35u
- Epinephrine 30u
- Nicotine 35u (Addiction at 30u, not sure its achievable with normal cig use)
- Crank 20u (Addiction at 10u, also really deadly)
- Krokodil 20u (Addicted at 15u, addiction is what causes skin and bones minus skin)
- Histamine 30u (This is what makes Histamines dangerous)
How to treat:
- Pentetic acid clears all chemicals from the body.
Disease
Diseases are the most frustrating thing you will deal with, as it spreads, and can infect you as well. A disease can be identified easily with the Health Scanner HUD, it giving a green-unhappy-face-icon next to the patient. PDA or a Health Analyzer will give more detailed information about the disease and its cure.
How to Treat:
- Suit up in anti-viral equipment.
- Isolate the patient from public areas (if they have an infectious disease).
- Use your Health Analyzer or PDA to see the cure to the disease (usually some basic chemical element).
- Administer the chemical element needed. OR if the virologist has made a vaccine, administering one unit of it will instantly cure and immunize.
- Monitor the patient's condition, do not leave them until they are clear and have become resistant to the disease.
- Check if you are infected after dealing with the patient.
After:
- If you did not have the vaccine for the disease, take a blood sample from the cured patient and hand it to the virologist to help him/her make a vaccine.
If you half ass curing people, the disease may return and kill the person. And they can get infected if they are cloned as well!
Blindness
The person cannot see, they usually will scream about this endlessly.
How to treat:
- If vision is just blurry, give carrots or a pair of prescription glasses.
- If they are completely blind, eye surgery.
- Omnizine has a chance of curing blindness while slowly healing eye damage.
Deafness
The person cannot hear, they are usually unresponsive to verbal communication and can't even hear themselves talking.
How to treat:
- Inacusiate cures deafness and heals ear damage.
Genetic Disabilities
Disabilities cannot be cured by normal medical tools.
How to treat:
- Ask a competent geneticist for a clean SE injector.
- A one unit mutadone pill or injection will also instantly cure all genetic abnormalities. This includes beneficial ones.
Radiation
Rarely you will treat this, it causes people to black out all the time and take steady toxin damage. It either comes from space radiation surges, after which crew members will "feel strange" and begin to vomit, but more likely you'll be treating engineers who got too close to the singularity or incompetent geneticists who've stuck themselves with too many SE injectors.
How to treat:
- If you have potassium iodide or pentetic acid, use them. These will remove the radiation before it poisons the patient further.
- Else, treat with charcoal (Anti-toxin) until the radiation levels have subsided.
Hallucinations
This nasty effect causes the victim to see (usually deadly) objects in his and others' hands, along with random visions of people and creatures attacking him, causing stamina damage. Extremely unpleasant. Caused by changelings, mindbreaker toxin, and some bad 'shrooms.
How to treat:
- Charcoal (Anti-toxin) helps hallucinations wear off faster.
- Synaptizine Is twice as good for removing hallucinations. But can cause light toxin damage. Administering alongside anti-toxin will treat the patient faster and counteract the negative side effect of Synaptizine.
Death
Either they died in your care, (in which case you should use a defibrillator) or were dead on arrival. (you should still try the debib)
How to treat:
- Cloning in Genetics.
or:
- Cloning in Hydroponics:
- You must take a blood sample to be injected during the growth cycle.
- This option creates perfect (though sometimes plant-like) human clones.
PLEASE NOTE In the morgue there are lights on the side of the trays. the red light means there is a dead body with no ghost occupying it. Green light means there is a body with a ghost in it, which means you should clone it, or risk being bitched at in dead chat, or maybe MAYBE a jobban. Do us all a favor and READ THE LIGHTS ON THE MORGUE TRAYS
Cheat Sheet for the Lazy Efficient Doctor
Afternote
If you aren't serious about healing someone, don't give up halfway, get proper medical staff to help them. Don't leave them in Genetics to just die either (this wastes everyone else's time, except yours, you selfish fuck), at least try to have a doctor save them.