Fuse Medical Roles and Detach Medical from the Real Job of Medical Doctor

[Coalf]

No beating around the bush, let's get into it.

Replace Medical with:

Biologistics


Assistant Biologist - Intern/Resident, the "Hello I am Baby Help me" job

Biological Researcher - Doctor, Surgeon, Nurse, CBT Expert and everything in-between

Rescue Technician - EMT/Paramedic/Firefighter, whatever, basically the "Go out and save the schmuck.

Chemist - No need to change this.

Mental Health Researcher - Psychologist/Psychiatrist in one role.

Head Biological Researcher - CMO

Pro's:
By making this IRL set of jobs completely ours, we also gain complete control over it in terms of lore and development.
The constant repeating and draining argument of "Well this job does X and needs Y age and also we should make 2 more subsets of jobs because these surgeries are extremely complicated for one person" is discarded.
The gap between how unrealistic the gameplay itself is and how stupidly over-specific the job titles and their requirements were, is going to be bridged.
It is going to bring us closer to a Corporate, Scientific Motif. While yes, "We're not going to be a research station forever", NT is still a company and by creating a wholly unique medical job for them, it's tying it closer to our setting, rather than what people imagine normally under the term "doctor".
Yes, people can still call each other Dr. or use Doctorates, the difference is it makes the developers, lore writers and admins jobs much easier. Because they no longer need to study a phonebook worth of information just to tell Drak Ula that he indeed can't do a triple spanktomy on that patient.
Absolutely every other job already functions like this, nobody has ever complained about them. I think it's time we also stop this constant debate for medical.

Con's:
A lot of people are attached to medical roles as they are right now and this is going to make them angry/sad/upset. I am not here to say that your opinions or feelings don't matter, I personally haven't played medical in a LOOONG time so maybe YOU don't think I have a right to speak about this.
But the fact is, medical is the only department that has consistently gone through these arguments, debates and near bi-monthly changes to roles, requirements, ages etc. etc. Every other department is perfectly content with being a vague sci-fi equivalent of an IRL job. I think that if you try this, you might find that nothing important changed and you were clinging to arbitrarily constructed ghosts for comfort.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Coalf

[Chada1]

I'd actually be ? with this, or something like it, especially with the new chem changes.

[furrycactus]

Considering we literally just pushed the most recent rework, I'm not hot on another rework that overhauls literally everything all over again. I was more or less on board with the other changes, but this kind of just feels like changing things for the sake of changing them.

Everything just got nailed down, we shouldn't go and throw it all to the wind immediately again.

[Roostercat]

This also groups all the different doctor roles together, like physician and surgeon, who can do wildly different things. On top of that, why would biologists be running a medbay? They are basically scientists.

[Chada1]

I do kinda agree tho that it's a little early for another rework

[stev]

I don't really understand the 'turn it all into biological research' angle? If it's not added alongside a load of new systems for biological research, it seems like all this'll do is invalidate... Basically every current Medical character, since they'd now all have to be retooled as 'biological researchers' rather than just medical practitioners. This also makes it kinda weird in that about 0% of the department's mechanics/function in a round is about - or has any real room for being about - biological research without the addition of enough new mechanics to base half a department around. There's also some weird dissonance with having 'Rescue Technician' under the biology department, as that's both the role most explicitly about medical care while also being the least qualified for medical care.

And to try and make sure my point's clear, my problem with it isn't that it's change or that it's a move away from 'realistic' medical job names; rather it's the fact that, unlike every other department, this fundamentally changes the theme and purpose of the department as a whole rather than just the titles within it. Imagine, for example, if we turned Engineering into Banking because they maintain the station's power and in-lore Idris runs both the power stations and the banks. It's a bit of a silly comparison, yes, but I think it's on a pretty similar level to what's being proposed here - it completely changes the soul, theme and intent of both the department and most of its jobs to be about something only tangentially related (Medical care -> biological research, energy production -> credit management) and not yet present in any meaningful capacity in the game.

Edited July 29, 2020 by stev

[Carver]

I love this idea. Always hated that a small-ish yet valued research station seemingly had a fully kitted hospital with no particular purpose outside of emergencies - with medical personnel often equal to or outnumbering research personnel.

Making Medical into a pseudo-Research department is exactly the re-flavouring I'd have hoped for to solve that. Can't +1 this enough.

[Zundy]

I agree with carver. I do appreciate that we'd need to retool characters though. I've always wanted us to change medical into a more research like function and move away from 2020 medical roles.

Maybe instead of Biologistics it could be called Medical Research or Experimental Medicine. Opens up the door for inclusions such as genetics and non-meme viral research etc later on.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Zundy

[BoryaTheSlayer]

5 hours ago, stev said:

And to try and make sure my point's clear, my problem with it isn't that it's change or that it's a move away from 'realistic' medical job names; rather it's the fact that, unlike every other department, this fundamentally changes the theme and purpose of the department as a whole rather than just the titles within it. Imagine, for example, if we turned Engineering into Banking because they maintain the station's power and in-lore Idris runs both the power stations and the banks. It's a bit of a silly comparison, yes, but I think it's on a pretty similar level to what's being proposed here - it completely changes the soul, theme and intent of both the department and most of its jobs to be about something only tangentially related (Medical care -> biological research, energy production -> credit management) and not yet present in any meaningful capacity in the game.

A very big agree with Stev here. Not only we would be changing the theme, soul and intent of the department, but the proposal simply outlines name changes. If you want them to be scientists and do medical research, you should at least add something for them to actually research. Change the department as a whole.

That being said, I also don't really agree with some of the "pro's" of the proposal either.
 

Quote

It is going to bring us closer to a Corporate, Scientific Motif. While yes, "We're not going to be a research station forever", NT is still a company and by creating a wholly unique medical job for them, it's tying it closer to our setting, rather than what people imagine normally under the term "doctor".

I do not see anything corporate about them being scientists? What about it is tying us closer to the setting? And, part of the appeal of playing medical is this image of a doctor. In fact, it's one of the biggest reasons for me playing the department.

 

Quote

Absolutely every other job already functions like this, nobody has ever complained about them. I think it's time we also stop this constant debate for medical.

I don't think this is a good way of resolving these "constant debates"(which are, to my memory, not constant at all and only happen on the few occasions medical gets big changes). If people want to argue for realism, they may do so-- though, they should remember that it is mostly in vain because as far as I know, our goal is not realism at all.

[furrycactus]

5 hours ago, stev said:

And to try and make sure my point's clear, my problem with it isn't that it's change or that it's a move away from 'realistic' medical job names; rather it's the fact that, unlike every other department, this fundamentally changes the theme and purpose of the department as a whole rather than just the titles within it. Imagine, for example, if we turned Engineering into Banking because they maintain the station's power and in-lore Idris runs both the power stations and the banks. It's a bit of a silly comparison, yes, but I think it's on a pretty similar level to what's being proposed here - it completely changes the soul, theme and intent of both the department and most of its jobs to be about something only tangentially related (Medical care -> biological research, energy production -> credit management) and not yet present in any meaningful capacity in the game.

9 minutes ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

A very big agree with Stev here. Not only we would be changing the theme, soul and intent of the department, but the proposal simply outlines name changes. If you want them to be scientists and do medical research, you should at least add something for them to actually research. Change the department as a whole.

9 minutes ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

And, part of the appeal of playing medical is this image of a doctor. In fact, it's one of the biggest reasons for me playing the department.

Articulated much better than I could've put it. One of the biggest appeals of actually playing medical is being a doctor. If we move away from this, we're effectively alienating basically 100% of medical characters, or forcing the players to have to come up with a huge justification for such a sudden change in employment. All of them. All at the same time. Also moving away from medical being doctors pretty much invalidates a majority of IAC characters as well, who are doctors, practitioners, and medical workers, not biologists and researchers. Really not something I'm keen on the idea of.

Not to mention, this will basically become redundant when the NBT comes around. When we're a self-sufficient ship floating through the isolated dark of space, then yes, we're going to need general practitioners and physicians to do the standard checkups, because people are going to be living there (plus, this is already fun roleplay on the Aurora? I don't see why we should squash it). I don't see much point introducing something that we'll have to revert down the line, on top of the earlier fact that we also just reworked this stuff one day ago.

Edited July 29, 2020 by furrycactus

[Peppermint]

Biology and medicine are entirely separate fields for the most part. There's some overlap, but a researcher isn't going to be practising medicine in 99% of cases. Not really a fan of this at all - imo it removes flavour in favour of homogenisation of roles. We just had a rather promising update - I like the mindset behind this, but not sure it would work all too well. 

[Coalf]

8 hours ago, furrycactus said:

Considering we literally just pushed the most recent rework, I'm not hot on another rework that overhauls literally everything all over again. I was more or less on board with the other changes, but this kind of just feels like changing things for the sake of changing them.

Everything just got nailed down, we shouldn't go and throw it all to the wind immediately again.

I think that's ridiculous, the longer you let people work with something the more they get used to it. The faster a change comes, the less people will be upset with how large the scope of those changes will be because many might not have gotten used to them yet, or adjusted their characters.
 

 

8 hours ago, Roostercat said:

This also groups all the different doctor roles together, like physician and surgeon, who can do wildly different things. On top of that, why would biologists be running a medbay? They are basically scientists.

Yes, that's the point. Engineers also do everything. Scientists can do any role in science. Literally nobody has issue with those two.
It was fine in Star Trek, it doesn't matter here.

6 hours ago, stev said:

I don't really understand the 'turn it all into biological research' angle? If it's not added alongside a load of new systems for biological research, it seems like all this'll do is invalidate... Basically every current Medical character, since they'd now all have to be retooled as 'biological researchers' rather than just medical practitioners. This also makes it kinda weird in that about 0% of the department's mechanics/function in a round is about - or has any real room for being about - biological research without the addition of enough new mechanics to base half a department around. There's also some weird dissonance with having 'Rescue Technician' under the biology department, as that's both the role most explicitly about medical care while also being the least qualified for medical care.

And to try and make sure my point's clear, my problem with it isn't that it's change or that it's a move away from 'realistic' medical job names; rather it's the fact that, unlike every other department, this fundamentally changes the theme and purpose of the department as a whole rather than just the titles within it. Imagine, for example, if we turned Engineering into Banking because they maintain the station's power and in-lore Idris runs both the power stations and the banks. It's a bit of a silly comparison, yes, but I think it's on a pretty similar level to what's being proposed here - it completely changes the soul, theme and intent of both the department and most of its jobs to be about something only tangentially related (Medical care -> biological research, energy production -> credit management) and not yet present in any meaningful capacity in the game.

It's going to rename them all, and give everyone a wider skill set so they can apply it in more situations.
Rescue Technician can be changed to something else. No issue with that, but I don't think it's such an issue.

Valid, but I don't think purely changing the names of a department is going to cause such a marginal change. I'd relate it more to if we renamed "Cargo" to "Operations" and "Cargo Technician" to "Storage Operators". Rather than what you spoke about. If such an umbrella term as "engineer" can be mis-used for so many things engineers don't really do at all, I think we can mis-use biologist in the same way without an issue.
 

1 hour ago, Zundy said:

I agree with carver. I do appreciate that we'd need to retool characters though. I've always wanted us to change medical into a more research like function and move away from 2020 medical roles.

Maybe instead of Biologistics it could be called Medical Research or Experimental Medicine. Opens up the door for inclusions such as genetics and non-meme viral research etc later on.

Could be possible, yes. Medical Researcher, Medicinal Researcher, Biological Technician, Body Fixxer Upper etc. all would be valid options.

 

1 hour ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

A very big agree with Stev here. Not only we would be changing the theme, soul and intent of the department, but the proposal simply outlines name changes. If you want them to be scientists and do medical research, you should at least add something for them to actually research. Change the department as a whole.

That being said, I also don't really agree with some of the "pro's" of the proposal either.
 

I do not see anything corporate about them being scientists? What about it is tying us closer to the setting? And, part of the appeal of playing medical is this image of a doctor. In fact, it's one of the biggest reasons for me playing the department.

 

I don't think this is a good way of resolving these "constant debates"(which are, to my memory, not constant at all and only happen on the few occasions medical gets big changes). If people want to argue for realism, they may do so-- though, they should remember that it is mostly in vain because as far as I know, our goal is not realism at all.

I don't think it changes the spirit as a whole. If it is so severe as people keep repeating, perhaps it is for the best since so many research roles are also interspersed with biology. And it could in the future open up the possibility of re-adding virology, genetics and allowing chemists to experiment more.

As far as people know we're primarily a research based setting. Even in NBT the research department is where a large part of energy is going to go. This isn't changing anything, again, this is just branding it as something "ours" and bringing it closer to the whole feeling of a space-opera. Similar to how in Star Trek the medical there is also included under science.
Nothing is going to change. In fact what I'm suggesting has existed in SS13 for a long time, only recently has it become a trend to anally over-specify jobs to the point where there can be a department full of doctors but not a single one can operate on my kidney.

No other department holds the issue of "Waah this job title isn't realistic enough!!! REAL DOCTORS DON'T DO THAT". Further, if we're not in pursuit of realism, why has this line of thinking not only been tolerated, but actually appeased to by developers, CCIA and admins alike? It has gotten out of the teams hands. This makes it easier on everyone.
 

1 hour ago, furrycactus said:

Articulated much better than I could've put it. One of the biggest appeals of actually playing medical is being a doctor. If we move away from this, we're effectively alienating basically 100% of medical characters, or forcing the players to have to come up with a huge justification for such a sudden change in employment. All of them. All at the same time. Also moving away from medical being doctors pretty much invalidates a majority of IAC characters as well, who are doctors, practitioners, and medical workers, not biologists and researchers. Really not something I'm keen on the idea of.

Not to mention, this will basically become redundant when the NBT comes around. When we're a self-sufficient ship floating through the isolated dark of space, then yes, we're going to need general practitioners and physicians to do the standard checkups, because people are going to be living there (plus, this is already fun roleplay on the Aurora? I don't see why we should squash it). I don't see much point introducing something that we'll have to revert down the line, on top of the earlier fact that we also just reworked this stuff one day ago.

If you get alienated because of a name change, then you're part of the issue.

Yes everyone had to change when we split detective and forensics tech, yes everyone had to change when we excluded handicapped characters from certain jobs, yes everyone had to change when we added 2-4 arbitrary job roles to medical when it was previously handled by doctors, meaning people who did surgeries for 3+ years now couldn't.

I literally just changed the name and grouped everyone into less jobs so they can do more things.
Nobody has to change their backstory. Nobody has to change their requirements. Nobody has to make an excuse. Nobody has been invalidated. No roleplay has been ruined. No "general checkups and physicals" have been removed.
Medical will be doing exactly the identical thing they have been doing until now. The difference is, people will be divorced from their vanity of basing their entire existence of their character on the fact they are allowed to pull a light-bulb out of someones ass while a Nurse isn't.
 

29 minutes ago, Lemei said:

Biology and medicine are entirely separate fields for the most part. There's some overlap, but a researcher isn't going to be practising medicine in 99% of cases. Not really a fan of this at all - imo it removes flavour in favour of homogenisation of roles. We just had a rather promising update - I like the mindset behind this, but not sure it would work all too well. 

All of our jobs are inaccurate portrayals of real life jobs. Calling medical "Biology" has been a staple of sci-fi for a long time now and I don't see why medical in specific is supposed to be the one department that just HAS to be as realistic as possible in how we title it.
Further, yes, the point is to remove the unnecessary medical restriction, requirement and superiority bloat. I am tired of this because this "Promising update" has now happened about 11 times.
It started off with just splitting Surgeon and Doctor, then we split EMT and Paramedic, then we placed more restrictions on those jobs, then we placed more restrictions on what nurses can do, then we split Medical Intern and Medical resident and what those two can do, then we continued and added a fucking "Trauma Physician" and now we're at a point where a doctor can't perform a good 40% of medical because he isn't "qualified" while a nurse is expected to shuffle papers and guess what people have ALREADY started arguing about that.

This whole "splitting" is ridiculous, facile and serves nothing besides annoying everyone involved. Except the surgeon of course who can do anything he wants if there are no other physicians present, making him effectively CMO 2.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

15 minutes ago, Coalf said:

Nothing is going to change.

That's my issue. You either change the whole thing or don't rename the jobs. What they will be doing will have very little to do with research, and I find it very hard to justify the reflavouring towards science in that case. Saying we could bring genetics and virology back doesn't mean anything unless we get a coder to actually make these two things fun and interesting in the game. And that's gonna be a pretty hefty task, in my opinion.

Edited July 29, 2020 by BoryaTheSlayer
me mix up words

[kermit]

Okay, another medical change that’s stolen my attention. This suggestion has raised a lot of concerns, so I’ll address each one individually, which may take a while - apologies in advance.

Beginning with the general idea of a Biologistics Department, I don’t really believe it makes any sense for what its function will be on the station. This department seems like its main aim is biological research, but that is incompatible with the function of a Medical Department. Is a Biological Researcher meant to study and research the wounds of a patient who has just come in with a broken leg or something, what are they meant to be researching, and if they are researchers, why are they assuming the roles of a doctor, too? Scientists are usually equipped with PhDs (and any equivalents for the various alien species) whereas physicians are equipped with MDs, these two doctorates being very different in what they allow - while a biologist may have the knowledge to treat a gunshot wound to a decent degree, ultimately their abilities and knowledge pale in comparison to a physician; a physician may have a good understanding of researching biological processes, but again, that would pale in comparison to a biologist. The function of the Medical Department is to treat crew injuries, and incredibly severe ones at that, which I don’t see a Biologistics Department feasibly able to do without claiming to have both PhDs and MDs, but then that would mean everyone except the interns/assistant biologists would be in their late thirties/forties or something. A Biologistics Department would primarily focus on researching biology, but there is no equipment to really be able to do that, and then you’d come across issues of what can be researched - it’s 2462 and we’ve essentially mastered cloning technology, cryotherapy, advanced medications, et cetera, I don’t know any ideas of what could be researched pertaining to biology that wouldn’t require an incredibly imaginative mind which I, sadly, lack. In summary, I don’t really see how a biologistics department, a department of biologists, can sufficiently act to the same degree as a Medical Department staffed with actual physicians.

My second point is that the Medical Department fits the setting just fine. Our stories are set on a space station, in space which is no surprise, with miners prone to falling, in an incredibly hostile environment with carp and blobs, where there has been at least a year and a half (that’s as long as I’ve been around, but I’m sure there were high-action canonical events before I joined the community) of history of firefights and incursions aboard the N.S.S. Aurora. It makes an incredible amount of sense for NanoTrasen to have installed a Medical Department on their space station due to those issues - a Medical Department staffed by actual trained physicians and surgeons, and not researchers doubling as both roles. If a miner falls down a hole and breaks their arm and punctures their suit, you want a department full of doctors and surgeons nearby trained to remove hardsuits, treat arterial bleeding surgically or with medication, and trained to bone-glue fractures up; if a school of migrating carp are coming by and they’re intent on depressurising the station, you want a a team of physicians trained to deal with health problems related to depressurisation; you don’t a team of researchers prodding you trying to to further understand the exact mechanism behind your impending death. The Medical Department already makes perfect sense on a space station, maybe it’s not perfect how it’s currently laid out, but it makes sense and functions well-enough. And when the Next Big Thing comes around and the setting will be moved onto that of a mobile expeditionary vessel, then a Medical Department will make even more sense as there are likely not going to be any decently equipped hospital or clinics nearby.

My third concern is the mushing together of all of the physician roles into one role. Powergaming concerns asides, this could damage one of the largest aspects of playing Medical: teamwork and coordination. I have the pleasure of playing Chief Medical Officer every now and then and getting to see a Medical Department, with a varied roster, all working together like clockwork is fascinating. Describing a recent round: we had a trauma physician, surgeon and myself. I opted to remain clear of the various wards, allowing the surgeon and trauma physician to triage the five or six officers who had come in mauled by a changeling, and between them they determined who was the most critical, and thus under the domain of the trauma physician to be treated in the ICU, and who was the most in-need of surgery, and thus under the domain of the surgeon. There was an observable flow of patients entering the GTR, going through triage, then either being admitted to the ICU for the trauma physician to treat or diverted to the 3-person queue outside of the COT for the surgeon to treat. In other rounds, you can see this same thing, though they are definitely rare. When they do come around they really emphasise the importance of having roles that are split into clear responsibilities and can-do’s and cannot-do’s. If you were to mush all of the physician roles into Biological Researcher, then you won’t have this, you’ll have lost one of the best aspects of Medical. You’ll open the door for Biological Researchers being know-it-alls who are knowledgeable about every field within the Medical/Biologistics department, and you will also diminish the emphasis on team work as roles are no longer clearly defined, which will probably result in a lot of overstepping.

And my fourth concern is related to the first con you outline, that ‘people are attached to medical roles […] and this is going to make them angry/sad/upset.’ Yep. As someone who’s never really enjoyed playing the other departments, turning the Medical Department into a sciency knock-off of one will probably leave me stranded.

That’s all I have for this one: medical makes sense as it is; a biologistics department doesn’t make sense to me; this change would, as Lemei mentioned, homogenise the roles which removes the flavour of each one which, from my view, would remove the already diminished and rare sense of teamwork from Medical.

[Coalf]

29 minutes ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

That's my issue. You either change the whole thing or don't rename the jobs. What they will be doing will have very little to do in research, and I find it very hard to justify the reflavouring towards science in that case. Saying we could bring genetics and virology back doesn't mean anything unless we get a coder to actually make these two things fun and interesting in the game. And that's gonna be a pretty hefty task, in my opinion.

No, I just rename the jobs and make less jobs.
The whole thing might change flavor slightly and open it up to being more leaning towards the science wing, but absolutely nothing is going to change for the people in medical. You will still be a doctor, you will still fix peoples bones, you won't be expected to do more than that.
If the title of Biological Researcher is SUCH an issue, it can easily be replaced with a different one. But the main point is to divorce the ideal of real-life medical, from our medical. Similarly to how Engineering, Security, Cargo, Command and "Civilian" are.

28 minutes ago, SadKermit said:

Okay, another medical change that’s stolen my attention. This suggestion has raised a lot of concerns, so I’ll address each one individually, which may take a while - apologies in advance.

Beginning with the general idea of a Biologistics Department, I don’t really believe it makes any sense for what its function will be on the station. This department seems like its main aim is biological research, but that is incompatible with the function of a Medical Department. Is a Biological Researcher meant to study and research the wounds of a patient who has just come in with a broken leg or something, what are they meant to be researching, and if they are researchers, why are they assuming the roles of a doctor, too? Scientists are usually equipped with PhDs (and any equivalents for the various alien species) whereas physicians are equipped with MDs, these two doctorates being very different in what they allow - while a biologist may have the knowledge to treat a gunshot wound to a decent degree, ultimately their abilities and knowledge pale in comparison to a physician; a physician may have a good understanding of researching biological processes, but again, that would pale in comparison to a biologist. The function of the Medical Department is to treat crew injuries, and incredibly severe ones at that, which I don’t see a Biologistics Department feasibly able to do without claiming to have both PhDs and MDs, but then that would mean everyone except the interns/assistant biologists would be in their late thirties/forties or something. A Biologistics Department would primarily focus on researching biology, but there is no equipment to really be able to do that, and then you’d come across issues of what can be researched - it’s 2462 and we’ve essentially mastered cloning technology, cryotherapy, advanced medications, et cetera, I don’t know any ideas of what could be researched pertaining to biology that wouldn’t require an incredibly imaginative mind which I, sadly, lack. In summary, I don’t really see how a biologistics department, a department of biologists, can sufficiently act to the same degree as a Medical Department staffed with actual physicians.

My second point is that the Medical Department fits the setting just fine. Our stories are set on a space station, in space which is no surprise, with miners prone to falling, in an incredibly hostile environment with carp and blobs, where there has been at least a year and a half (that’s as long as I’ve been around, but I’m sure there were high-action canonical events before I joined the community) of history of firefights and incursions aboard the N.S.S. Aurora. It makes an incredible amount of sense for NanoTrasen to have installed a Medical Department on their space station due to those issues - a Medical Department staffed by actual trained physicians and surgeons, and not researchers doubling as both roles. If a miner falls down a hole and breaks their arm and punctures their suit, you want a department full of doctors and surgeons nearby trained to remove hardsuits, treat arterial bleeding surgically or with medication, and trained to bone-glue fractures up; if a school of migrating carp are coming by and they’re intent on depressurising the station, you want a a team of physicians trained to deal with health problems related to depressurisation; you don’t a team of researchers prodding you trying to to further understand the exact mechanism behind your impending death. The Medical Department already makes perfect sense on a space station, maybe it’s not perfect how it’s currently laid out, but it makes sense and functions well-enough. And when the Next Big Thing comes around and the setting will be moved onto that of a mobile expeditionary vessel, then a Medical Department will make even more sense as there are likely not going to be any decently equipped hospital or clinics nearby.

My third concern is the mushing together of all of the physician roles into one role. Powergaming concerns asides, this could damage one of the largest aspects of playing Medical: teamwork and coordination. I have the pleasure of playing Chief Medical Officer every now and then and getting to see a Medical Department, with a varied roster, all working together like clockwork is fascinating. Describing a recent round: we had a trauma physician, surgeon and myself. I opted to remain clear of the various wards, allowing the surgeon and trauma physician to triage the five or six officers who had come in mauled by a changeling, and between them they determined who was the most critical, and thus under the domain of the trauma physician to be treated in the ICU, and who was the most in-need of surgery, and thus under the domain of the surgeon. There was an observable flow of patients entering the GTR, going through triage, then either being admitted to the ICU for the trauma physician to treat or diverted to the 3-person queue outside of the COT for the surgeon to treat. In other rounds, you can see this same thing, though they are definitely rare. When they do come around they really emphasise the importance of having roles that are split into clear responsibilities and can-do’s and cannot-do’s. If you were to mush all of the physician roles into Biological Researcher, then you won’t have this, you’ll have lost one of the best aspects of Medical. You’ll open the door for Biological Researchers being know-it-alls who are knowledgeable about every field within the Medical/Biologistics department, and you will also diminish the emphasis on team work as roles are no longer clearly defined, which will probably result in a lot of overstepping.

And my fourth concern is related to the first con you outline, that ‘people are attached to medical roles […] and this is going to make them angry/sad/upset.’ Yep. As someone who’s never really enjoyed playing the other departments, turning the Medical Department into a sciency knock-off of one will probably leave me stranded.

That’s all I have for this one: medical makes sense as it is; a biologistics department doesn’t make sense to me; this change would, as Lemei mentioned, homogenise the roles which removes the flavour of each one which, from my view, would remove the already diminished and rare sense of teamwork from Medical.

1) This is exactly the kind of thing I hope to get rid of. Detaching the whole department away from this concept of "well this isn't realistic, this is how that works and this is how this works" is exactly the pursuit and you have demonstrated it perfectly. There is absolutely zero reason to get so in-depth about this just because your own personal understanding of this field is broader than someone elses. Engineering, Security, Detective Work, Commanding, all of these jobs are also a mixture of multiple different doctorates, schools and experiences. We make fun of security officers who take their job too seriously and act realistically because "Well it doesn't make the game fun". Yet we tolerate the same gate-keeping and toxic behavior from doctors because it's "how real professionals do it".

Similarly, for a long time, "Biology" has been a catch-all term for both science and medical doctors. See: Dead Space, Star Trek, Star Wars etc. Not only that but as you exactly pointed out, it also includes ALIENS. Something our extremely specific and narrow understanding of how doctorates and Phd's work DOESN'T INCLUDE! Thus the "real life look" onto things ALREADY does not work, yet people are willing to tolerate that? Not only that but our medical jobs are already different in many details from real-life medical jobs in what they do, are supposed to be doing and how they're doing them. I really don't get why people are so heavily married to this idea of following the "proper medical naming scheme" yet when it comes to realism in literally any other aspect it's suddenly fine that it isn't that way.

2) Same argument applies. Medical will be doing exactly the same thing as they've been doing until now. Except their roles will be wider, not narrower as you seem to be trying to imply. None of the problems you outlined are real with this change. If the idea of "Biological Researcher" is so bad, they could easily be called "Biological Specialists", it's just a renaming scheme existing specifically to divorce medical from these arguments for "Well in real life". It has been happening for YEARS.

3) The ability to do more things doesn't make you a powergamer, otherwise I'd ask you why are you playing a CMO and not a physician when you do play medical.
Well in my scenario I came to medical and died due to a Kidney failure because the 5 present medical professionals weren't qualified to deal with it. It was fascinating to see the flow of them panicking and putting me on a constant drip feed of anti-tox while saying "I hope a surgeon connects soon" in LOOC.
Anecdotal evidence is not evidence, for every good encounter you bring up I can bring a bad one.

The difference is I know that medical worked just as fine as how I suggest it, because that's how medical was 3-4 years ago before we started splitting it into smaller and smaller arbitrary roles. The reason I am suggesting re-branding, rather than just turning back the time and turning everyone into a doctor again. Is because people will make the exact same arguments as they are in this thread, to get it split up into tiny roles again, repeating the whole issue all over again.

Besides this already exists! Surgeons can actually do anything, there is no need for anyone to play a physician or a trauma physician.

There very clearly does not exist a "importance of having roles that are split into clear responsibilities and can-do’s and cannot-do’s." Because again, this has been consistently changing EVERY YEAR and people are now making actual CHARTS about what they can and can't do because the restrictions have become so arbitrary that players can't even keep track of them without writing them down.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Coalf

[Scheveningen]

Ahhhhh not another fucking thread with word soup. Why does this always happen with discussing medical?

Honestly all I care about is removing bloat alt titles while still keeping the inexperienced/GTR roles. I don't care about labels, all I care about is having a functional department that has incredibly clear cut standards on what the middlemen can or can't do. The game - and by extension every aspect of this game - needs to be accessible to ALL players and fairly easy to learn.

Medical needs to be changed in such a way so that the department isn't cock and ball torture to play and comprehend the terminology commonly used in the department. This demand to conformity of a standard that the average player cannot be held to is largely what gatekeeps a good majority of decent players away from learning and playing medical, if not from the server as a whole.

[Coalf]

PART II OF MY SUGGESTION SINCE A LOT OF PEOPLE SEEM TO BE CONFUSED

I have done a wrong job of explaining what I meant with Biologistics.

The purpose is not to turn medical INTO research. It is to keep medical AS IS

But the reason for the rebranding are:

1. Separate the "real life" concept of medical from the on-station medical.

No other job suggestion can survive off of the "But in real life..." argument. Yet medical changes HINGE on this point.
This is purely because people still attach the name "medical" and "Doctor" to its real life counterpart. This means that we give more validity to arguments that make no sense for any other job. (When was the last time you heard someone say 'but in real life mall security doesn't have guns!'?)
Thus the purpose isn't to turn them into science, the purpose is to remove the idea that medical on-station is somehow equal to medical in real-life. Every other job role already works that way, because when you think of an engineer you don't think of a guy at a drawing board calculating the size of rivets. But rather, a dude in a space suit fixing a ship.

2. Widen the impact of roles, while lessening the arbitrary numbers of them.

There is no reason to have a Physician, Trauma Physician, Nurse and Surgeon nor is there a reason to have a Psychologist, Psychiatrist, EMT and Paramedic. We have nowhere near the amount of procedures that warrant the existence of these jobs. As it stands a Surgeon can do anything, the reason he can't is because he's not allowed to because he'd be taking fun away from other players not because he's restricted from it in any way.
Having just a Doctor/Biological Specialist/Fixery Uppery Toppery Man is better in every regard.

I am completely fine with it not being called Biologistics or Biological Researcher. But the point is to remove the term "doctor" and replace it with something that comes attached to a sci-fi concept, rather than a real life concept.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

Okay, sure then

[Peppermint]

Agree with everything SadKermit said, really.

 

Also, it's really not hard to get into learning medical and if people are really scared away because there are different titles, that's really on them? We have a wiki after all.  I would also point out that if there was no need to have any of these roles and people hated the limitations of them, they'd - ya know - not actively play them; we still have plenty of physicians/a few trauma docs/some EMTs. Nothing is stopping these people from doing other jobs if they want to, and it feels like a decent chunk of your argument - what people can/cannot do - has been mostly fixed in the newest update. 

 

I would also point out that other departments - security especially - do suffer from the 'but my realism' argument. Especially on the mallcops with guns angle, but that's an entirely different argument. It's simply nice to have other options on a server that should be putting RP in front of mechanics. If this included the reintroduction of a (non-shit) virology and the return of genetics, it would make considerably more sense imo. As it is however, I really don't see how this benefits any individual playing medical as opposed to solely being a way to get rid of arguments developers have issues with. 

 

Medical is fun because it's a complex department in my opinion. Stripping that away isn't a good move. 

[Coalf]

22 minutes ago, Lemei said:

Agree with everything SadKermit said, really.

 

Also, it's really not hard to get into learning medical and if people are really scared away because there are different titles, that's really on them? We have a wiki after all.  I would also point out that if there was no need to have any of these roles and people hated the limitations of them, they'd - ya know - not actively play them; we still have plenty of physicians/a few trauma docs/some EMTs. Nothing is stopping these people from doing other jobs if they want to, and it feels like a decent chunk of your argument - what people can/cannot do - has been mostly fixed in the newest update. 

 

I would also point out that other departments - security especially - do suffer from the 'but my realism' argument. Especially on the mallcops with guns angle, but that's an entirely different argument. It's simply nice to have other options on a server that should be putting RP in front of mechanics. If this included the reintroduction of a (non-shit) virology and the return of genetics, it would make considerably more sense imo. As it is however, I really don't see how this benefits any individual playing medical as opposed to solely being a way to get rid of arguments developers have issues with. 

 

Medical is fun because it's a complex department in my opinion. Stripping that away isn't a good move. 

I didn't say it's hard. I said the titles are arbitrary and useless, which they are. We have nowhere near the amount of medical mechanics to justify these role splits.
Yes, some people play extraneous roles. Does not make these roles a non-waste. People play Electrical Engineers, people played Pharmacists. It's about the long-term benefit, not the short-term appeasement. And no, major chunk of my argument was that the jobs are rudimentary, not that people can and can't do things.
Imagine if you had a Miner Technician who can mine every mineral, Miner who cannot mine phoron and Uranium and a Minelet who can only mine iron and coal. They're all extraneous job positions. This is the current state of doctor.

Yes, suffer, but rarely do developers take it into account or pay lip service to these arguments. Yet in medical it is not only supported, but EXPECTED that people base their arguments on real life credentials and what those jobs do.
I have never seen RP develop from the fact that someone is a nurse and not a doctor. Yes, people have passed me onto someone else because they weren't capable of doing something and yes, people have taken others to assist them during surgery. BUT
Neither of those things is being removed, Rescue Techs will still pass on patients they have stabilized, Biological Assistants will still assist people during surgery if they ask for it. No RP is being removed, what is being removed is actually arbitrary mechanical restrictions. There is a constant rush to "pass on patients" to the right physicians, no RP comes of this, people just regurgitate patients from one doctor to another. There is no interaction being generated because there is the pressure of the fact that if you talk with the patient, he might die during the RP.

Example: If you have 5 doctors and 3 patients, you have 2 doctors who are free to do essentially anything they want. They can assist the other doctors, they can talk to patients post-surgery, they can sort medical, they can talk to patients during their diagnosis and lift the pressure off of the person doing mechanical diagnostics. If you have 5 patients, 5 patients are going to get treatment.

Example 2: If you have 5 doctors, 2 of them are physicians, 2 of them are trauma physicians and 1 is a surgeon, and 3 patients. If those three patients have a brain injury, the surgeon is the only one occupied. If those three patients got too drunk and now have liver damage, the surgeon is the only one occupied. If those three patients had their lungs collapse, the 2 physicians are still not qualified. If you then have 5 patients, those 5 patients have a very low chance of getting treated if they have anything outside of arterial bleeding.

It's complex in the same way a license to sell cabbages in the EU is. It shouldn't be, there is no reason for it to be, but it is.
There is no benefit from the current system to anyone playing medical. People have simply gotten used to playing this way.
 

[Skull132]

10 hours ago, Roostercat said:

This also groups all the different doctor roles together, like physician and surgeon, who can do wildly different things. On top of that, why would biologists be running a medbay? They are basically scientists.

That's just the thing, though. Half the distinctions we try to make with alt-titles and job separation in the medbay are worthless, gameplay wise. There is not enough content to have nurses and otherwise hospitality staff as separate alt-titles. The distinction between medical doctor and surgeon is, too, often bent one way or another: either on dead hour, you get away with doing more because of, largely, gameplay concerns. Or you end up restricting and differentiating between various forms of surgery because yes.

27 minutes ago, Lemei said:

Medical is fun because it's a complex department in my opinion. Stripping that away isn't a good move. 

Coalf's proposition isn't stripping away anything, however? All of the gameplay is to remain the same. Could you substantiate this further?

28 minutes ago, Lemei said:

I would also point out that other departments - security especially - do suffer from the 'but my realism' argument. Especially on the mallcops with guns angle, but that's an entirely different argument. It's simply nice to have other options on a server that should be putting RP in front of mechanics

WELLL. This is where some flak is to be taken but there is a mild separation of ideologies here. There is an inherent danger in leaning towards fluff where the gameplay clearly does not support it. Like, as much as we might want to believe that RP is important and RP must be put before mechanics, the blunt fact is that at least half, and likely more, medical bay visits end with the mechanical concerns being prioritized: you heal the person, yeet them away, and call it a day. And this is a thing that's done by both new and "senior" medical players. And it's fine, it's just that it is dangerous to hark back to some idealized version of roleplay that either doesn't exist, or fades away the moment push comes to shove.

-------

In general, I'm inclined to agree with Coalf's reasoning and the essence of his proposed solution. Though I am uncertain how well I specifically enjoy his proposed titles, but I can't think of a better solution at the moment.

[nonno_anselmo]

To be reductive, i think this whole argument is ahead of its time. 

It proposes a detrimental and negatively confusing change which fixes a fundamentally nonexistent issue and is based on gameplay mechanics that are to eventually be added to the game. I have been away from the server for a while now due to personal reasons and only recently got the time to play a ciuple rounds and i honestly have seen tje department in the same way i had left it a month prior, healthy. Borya already stated how having MedSci first needs proper mechanical support, if i (begrudgingly, since i have the experience) had to make parallels with other servers in which there is codepartemental effort between med and sci or an outright merging of both, i would immediatly find the already expressed flaw in your argument, aurora lacks cloning, genetics, virology, dissection surgery, chemistry (it is a pharmacy, no e-chem). There is nothibg to research, really. 

To adress titles being "arbitrary and useless" i would like to remind everyone that the machine supposed to heal organ damage in the absence of a chemist and surgeon, the cryo chamber, has been broken for the longest time (introduction of brainmed) and is seen as a scenery object due to this. 

RP does in fact generate from being a nurse, tp, surgeon, physician. Nurse players appreciate being asked things and being guided by a physician/tp/surgeon in their respective ambients, physicians appreciate giving counseling on perscriptions, handling paperwork and working with the rest of the department, tp players appreciate the adrenaline filled moments in which a critical patient needs to be resuscitated and surgeon players aporeciate post op procedures of giving the now renamed tramadol and informing the patient of what happened. I am goi g to beg your pardon but you really are making presumptions based on outdated anecdotal data. 

Factory medbay is an issue across all servers and i can assure each and every single one of you that here it is not as bad as a fraction of what i have seen and experienced (being ahelped for spending 4 minutes prepping revival surgery and succesfully doing it instead of chugging the body into a cloning pod being one of my fondest one) elsewhere. 

 

If the aim is to reduce the amount of disregard for rules andpresumed bloat which, to be frank, has been called an issue only by people who only enter medbay when ghosting then i would rather see it fixed by giving each role an asset through which they can aid an array of issues without necessarily overstepping. 

Physicians, Nurses and TPs cannot fix organs? Give us working cryochambers and cryoxadone

Nurses cannot fix broken bones? We have tramadol pill bottles which can also be ground,splints and wheelchairs are a thing. 

No chemist to make bicard and dermaline? Tricord is already potent enough as is and kits exist, there are dermaline pills (can be ground) for a total of 105u in the cabinet near the reception. 

No chemist to make imidazoline and or surgeon for eye surgery? Point the patient to the kitchen or the garden where theycan taste delicious carrot based dishes. 

The point is, you have to be creative and to, to be blunt, git gud. If you lose someone because you did not know what to do then it is fine, you did all you could do and you hopefully used proper etiquette and did so within the limits of your own duty without taking away from the fun of others. 

Regarding the anecdotal data where other MDs defer to you because they do not know what to do i frankly am going to tell you it sounds like their problem and that you should not fill in for other people's shortcomings. It is their issue they did not play intern or resident long enough and it is their issue they have not read the largely outdated and badly formatted wiki articles on how to play MD, one of the few roles that does not even have an etiquette page.

On another note, i would suggest keeping tabs on assholes berating newbies for not following the meta and perhaps informing staff of people being proverbial dicks as it is normal to play a snobbish cunt but when that is their only characterization and it has a negative impact on the game experience maybe it is time to take action icly and ask them to proverbially fuck off or ask someone above to ask them to tone it down. 

With this whole lasagna of whatever said, i am for renaming a few roles of mebay or perhaps reducing thw amount of slots avaliable but this is just a solution to an issue that is not there. In my honest opinion the solution to this issue is changing the playerbase's mentality through the wiki, by adding mechanics which discourage overstepping through choice aswell as enforcing IC limitation by teaching the staff to have a harsher no nonsense polcy regarding these things. 

 

Also, on a side note, refrain from saying everyone is confused by what you said in the future, the proper explanation of your points is key to getting them across. 

P.S.: i speak for the medbay during EU hours and the begging of the US/AU overlap hours. 

P.P.S.: i wrote all of this on the phone, typos may be present, feel free to adress them. Formatting and grammar checking is hard from here. 

Edited July 29, 2020 by nonno_anselmo
Clarification on a few typos

[Coalf]

52 minutes ago, nonno_anselmo said:

It proposes a detrimental and negatively confusing change which fixes a fundamentally nonexistent issue and is based on gameplay mechanics that are to eventually be added to the game. I have been away from the server for a while now due to personal reasons and only recently got the time to play a ciuple rounds and i honestly have seen tje department in the same way i had left it a month prior, healthy. Borya already stated how having MedSci first needs proper mechanical support, if i (begrudgingly, since i have the experience) had to make parallels with other servers in which there is codepartemental effort between med and sci or an outright merging of both, i would immediatly find the already expressed flaw in your argument, aurora lacks cloning, genetics, virology, dissection surgery, chemistry (it is a pharmacy, no e-chem). There is nothibg to research, really.

None of this was based or hinges on non-existant mechanics or things that will eventually be added to the game.
It's based on divorcing IRL med and in-game med, alongside reducing the amount of useless roles that constantly overlap each other to the point where we've had to make charts to keep tabs on how many things these roles overlap in, but can't do, so that other roles are allowed to do them.
I said it CAN serve and I HOPE it'll work to better integrate concepts that MIGHT be re-added.

Also the "Flaw in my argument" is actually in support of my argument. Yes, Aurora lacks cloning, virology, genetics, dissection, surgery, chemistry. This is exactly why we don't need so many roles, thank you for confirming that.
 

Quote

To adress titles being "arbitrary and useless" i would like to remind everyone that the machine supposed to heal organ damage in the absence of a chemist and surgeon, the cryo chamber, has been broken for the longest time (introduction of brainmed) and is seen as a scenery object due to this.

Yes, that is something useless, but because it is broken, not by design.

Quote

RP does in fact generate from being a nurse, tp, surgeon, physician. Nurse players appreciate being asked things and being guided by a physician/tp/surgeon in their respective ambients, physicians appreciate giving counseling on perscriptions, handling paperwork and working with the rest of the department, tp players appreciate the adrenaline filled moments in which a critical patient needs to be resuscitated and surgeon players aporeciate post op procedures of giving the now renamed tramadol and informing the patient of what happened. I am goi g to beg your pardon but you really are making presumptions based on outdated anecdotal data. 

None of that is being taken away by this change. Said this like 3-4 times already.
Assistants will help by guiding people to the Biologists. Biologists will counsel patients, handle paperwork and work with the departments. Rescue Techs will have those adrenaline filled moments in which a critical patients needs to be resuscitated. Biologists will appreciate post-op procedures. Literally nothing is going to change.
Again, since this needs to be said. NONE OF THIS IS GOING TO BE TAKEN AWAY, STOP SPREADING THIS

Quote

Factory medbay is an issue across all servers and i can assure each and every single one of you that here it is not as bad as a fraction of what i have seen and experienced (being ahelped for spending 4 minutes prepping revival surgery and succesfully doing it instead of chugging the body into a cloning pod being one of my fondest one) elsewhere. 

This doesn't seek to address the issue of factory medbay. It's here to address arbitrary roles, realism arguments and trying to ape real-life professions in a game that is neither as nuanced nor complex to facilitate that kind of aping.

Quote

If the aim is to reduce the amount of disregard for rules andpresumed bloat which, to be frank, has been called an issue only by people who only enter medbay when ghosting then i would rather see it fixed by giving each role an asset through which they can aid an array of issues without necessarily overstepping. 

Physicians, Nurses and TPs cannot fix organs? Give us working cryochambers and cryoxadone

Nurses cannot fix broken bones? We have tramadol pill bottles which can also be ground,splints and wheelchairs are a thing. 

No chemist to make bicard and dermaline? Tricord is already potent enough as is and kits exist, there are dermaline pills (can be ground) for a total of 105u in the cabinet near the reception. 

No chemist to make imidazoline and or surgeon for eye surgery? Point the patient to the kitchen or the garden where theycan taste delicious carrot based dishes. 

Yes, if it was the aim it would fail. Which it isn't, you can read about more above in my clarifications.

Or we just remove all 3 of those jobs, replace them with a Biologist and he can do that except he can also operate if he feels like it.

Yes, a nurse is so useless in how our medical works that she can be replaced with a security officer who knows first aid and knows that Tramadol is painkillers.

Okay? That'll probably still happen even after this change. Again, this isn't removing a chemist or making a super-doctor who will be able to do literally every job in medbay. Chemist is still going to exist.

Or we remove TP, Physician and Nurse so that a surgeon is always present. Since they're so useless they can be replaced with a carrot cake?

Quote

The point is, you have to be creative and to, to be blunt, git gud. If you lose someone because you did not know what to do then it is fine, you did all you could do and you hopefully used proper etiquette and did so within the limits of your own duty without taking away from the fun of others. 

If the point is to be creative, the ability for people to do more things is going to perpetuate creativity with how far people can take their treatment. Rather than shrugging their shoulders and pointing to a different doctor, or just metagaming with carrots.

Quote

Regarding the anecdotal data where other MDs defer to you because they do not know what to do i frankly am going to tell you it sounds like their problem and that you should not fill in for other people's shortcomings. It is their issue they did not play intern or resident long enough and it is their issue they have not read the largely outdated and badly formatted wiki articles on how to play MD, one of the few roles that does not even have an etiquette page.

I never said anyone "deferred to me".
You can look in the medical thread RIGHT NOW to look at a whole ass chart, listed by specific organ to organ on what you can and can't do. It's stupid, arbitrary and makes no sense in the game. As of now we have 4 jobs that do the same thing, but each of them is told they can't do certain specific things because ?????

Quote

On another note, i would suggest keeping tabs on assholes berating newbies for not following the meta and perhaps informing staff of people being proverbial dicks as it is normal to play a snobbish cunt but when that is their only characterization and it has a negative impact on the game experience maybe it is time to take action icly and ask them to proverbially fuck off or ask someone above to ask them to tone it down. 

Except this isn't an individual, nor is it a player specific behavior. It's an up-kept culture that has been normalized within medbay.
Besides, this does not exist to address these people, this change (as explained about 5-6 times) serves to divorce the idea of medical in-game, from medical in real life. Specifically so people stop making threads about how "this job does this and this job should do this", not how people behave in-game.

Quote

With this whole lasagna of whatever said, i am for renaming a few roles of mebay or perhaps reducing thw amount of slots avaliable but this is just a solution to an issue that is not there. In my honest opinion the solution to this issue is changing the playerbase's mentality through the wiki, by adding mechanics which discourage overstepping through choice aswell as enforcing IC limitation by teaching the staff to have a harsher no nonsense polcy regarding these things. 

Yes, we rename the jobs and remove the useless roles. This already makes it very clear what they're supposed to be doing, makes it impossible to overstep because hey, there is no overstepping and improves IC mentality by removing this antiquated system of medical professionals everyone refers to.
 

Quote

Also, on a side note, refrain from saying everyone is confused by what you said in the future, the proper explanation of your points is key to getting them across. 

P.S.: i speak for the medbay during EU hours and the begging of the US/AU overlap hours. 

After reading your reply it seems I'll need to make a third summary, because people are still just assuming what I'm saying instead of reading the points.
 

 

6 minutes ago, wowzewow said:

Actually, if we're going to turn medical into research as well, I suggest we go full on Med/Sci merger.

READ THE THREAD BEFORE POSTING

THIS ISN'T ABOUT TURNING MEDICAL INTO SCIENCE HOLY SHIT

[wowzewow]

3 minutes ago, Coalf said:

None of this was based or hinges on non-existant mechanics or things that will eventually be added to the game.
It's based on divorcing IRL med and in-game med, alongside reducing the amount of useless roles that constantly overlap each other to the point where we've had to make charts to keep tabs on how many things these roles overlap in, but can't do, so that other roles are allowed to do them.
I said it CAN serve and I HOPE it'll work to better integrate concepts that MIGHT be re-added.

Also the "Flaw in my argument" is actually in support of my argument. Yes, Aurora lacks cloning, virology, genetics, dissection, surgery, chemistry. This is exactly why we don't need so many roles, thank you for confirming that.
 

Yes, that is something useless, but because it is broken, not by design.

None of that is being taken away by this change. Said this like 3-4 times already.
Assistants will help by guiding people to the Biologists. Biologists will counsel patients, handle paperwork and work with the departments. Rescue Techs will have those adrenaline filled moments in which a critical patients needs to be resuscitated. Biologists will appreciate post-op procedures. Literally nothing is going to change.
Again, since this needs to be said. NONE OF THIS IS GOING TO BE TAKEN AWAY, STOP SPREADING THIS

This doesn't seek to address the issue of factory medbay. It's here to address arbitrary roles, realism arguments and trying to ape real-life professions in a game that is neither as nuanced nor complex to facilitate that kind of aping.

Yes, if it was the aim it would fail. Which it isn't, you can read about more above in my clarifications.

Or we just remove all 3 of those jobs, replace them with a Biologist and he can do that except he can also operate if he feels like it.

Yes, a nurse is so useless in how our medical works that she can be replaced with a security officer who knows first aid and knows that Tramadol is painkillers.

Okay? That'll probably still happen even after this change. Again, this isn't removing a chemist or making a super-doctor who will be able to do literally every job in medbay. Chemist is still going to exist.

Or we remove TP, Physician and Nurse so that a surgeon is always present. Since they're so useless they can be replaced with a carrot cake?

If the point is to be creative, the ability for people to do more things is going to perpetuate creativity with how far people can take their treatment. Rather than shrugging their shoulders and pointing to a different doctor, or just metagaming with carrots.

I never said anyone "deferred to me".
You can look in the medical thread RIGHT NOW to look at a whole ass chart, listed by specific organ to organ on what you can and can't do. It's stupid, arbitrary and makes no sense in the game. As of now we have 4 jobs that do the same thing, but each of them is told they can't do certain specific things because ?????

Except this isn't an individual, nor is it a player specific behavior. It's an up-kept culture that has been normalized within medbay.
Besides, this does not exist to address these people, this change (as explained about 5-6 times) serves to divorce the idea of medical in-game, from medical in real life. Specifically so people stop making threads about how "this job does this and this job should do this", not how people behave in-game.

Yes, we rename the jobs and remove the useless roles. This already makes it very clear what they're supposed to be doing, makes it impossible to overstep because hey, there is no overstepping and improves IC mentality by removing this antiquated system of medical professionals everyone refers to.
 

After reading your reply it seems I'll need to make a third summary, because people are still just assuming what I'm saying instead of reading the points.
 

 

READ THE THREAD BEFORE POSTING

THIS ISN'T ABOUT TURNING MEDICAL INTO SCIENCE HOLY SHIT

yeah i definitely went off topic here but if we're going to replace medical anyway with our own stuff might as well do something interesting with it

 

however you can still use the names i suggested

Edited July 29, 2020 by wowzewow

[Coalf]

Just now, wowzewow said:

yeah i definitely went off topic here but if we're going to replace medical anyway with our own stuff might as well do something interesting with it

Make a new thread for it after this one closes. I already have enough people getting on my ass that I want to replace medical with research because they can't read. I don't want more misinterpretation to be spread around. I do not hold strong opinions on fusing medical and science. I think it's a cool idea, but that is not the aim and the more people talk about it, the more misinformation is spread because again, people don't read.