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

[wowzewow]

1 minute ago, Coalf said:

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.

ok

[Haydizzle]

I’m probably going to step up to the bat and be labeled a class traitor for my opinion here, but a change of medical towards being more research oriented *does* make sense. It would be like working on a thesis so to speak; on top of being a doctor and medical professional, you’re also doing what doctors IRL do, including performing trials of new medicine, experimental techniques, and other such things. As a whole, the flavor of medical leaning towards this would be rather fascinating.

However, I do think that the name changes would need to be a closer merge of Coalf’s idea paired with some names that give more recognition to what the roles do overall. A good pro of having the names kept *as is* is that people see the name and probably have a basic idea of what that role does 90% of the time. If we get too crazy with the naming process, we could be alienating new players somewhat. Just my two cents.

On this note too, putting research and medical next to each other in the remap might not be an awful idea, and having *some* cross departmental play would be interesting (such as robotics and surgery having access to the same operating theater, chemists having the potential to make chems and do research for science on the side). That said this might not be the thread for those ideas though based on what I’ve read :’^)

(PS: chances are if you ping me on this thread I will not reply, I already had to get through an hour of word soup just to reach the end and give my parting thoughts. Think about how much energy you want to spend on a one hour post if I might not get to reading it)

Also, to be fair, if the thread is named ‘No More Medical’, I can see the upheaval, the title is a tad misleading

Edited July 29, 2020 by Haydizzle
Oops last note there

[Coalf]

6 minutes ago, Haydizzle said:

I’m probably going to step up to the bat and be labeled a class traitor for my opinion here, but a change of medical towards being more research oriented *does* make sense. It would be like working on a thesis so to speak; on top of being a doctor and medical professional, you’re also doing what doctors IRL do, including performing trials of new medicine, experimental techniques, and other such things. As a whole, the flavor of medical leaning towards this would be rather fascinating.

However, I do think that the name changes would need to be a closer merge of Coalf’s idea paired with some names that give more recognition to what the roles do overall. A good pro of having the names kept *as is* is that people see the name and probably have a basic idea of what that role does 90% of the time. If we get too crazy with the naming process, we could be alienating new players somewhat. Just my two cents.

On this note too, putting research and medical next to each other in the remap might not be an awful idea, and having *some* cross departmental play would be interesting (such as robotics and surgery having access to the same operating theater, chemists having the potential to make chems and do research for science on the side). That said this might not be the thread for those ideas though based on what I’ve read :’^)

(PS: chances are if you ping me on this thread I will not reply, I already had to get through an hour of word soup just to reach the end and give my parting thoughts. Think about how much energy you want to spend on a one hour post if I might not get to reading it)

Also, to be fair, if the thread is named ‘No More Medical’, I can see the upheaval, the title is a tad misleading

The reason why I want to pursue a simple name change first, rather than a full on "let's murder medical". Is because of this exact response.

I do not want to invalidate other peoples feelings. A lot of people play medical and they enjoy it.
I recognize the fear they're going through, about a year or two ago when I used to main Psychiatrist I supported a mechanical change that would change the role completely. It resulted in me HATING the role and never playing it again.

This is why I do not want to change anything fundamentally but simply alter the names and essentially revert medical to how it was. If people wish to pursue the path of Med/Sci in the future? I won't stop them, but I think it should be approached AS carefully as departmental security was.
The names are more of a work in progress, I made it yesterday, I was tired and bolstered by people who told me it was a cool name. I understand how it could be confusing. Again, I am not opposed to the whole change being named completely differently. As long as it results in less overlapping doctor roles and a divorce of IRL med and in-game thread.

Also yes, the name is a bit attention-grabby. I perhaps overestimated how many people actually read these threads compared to just posting in them.
 

[Haydizzle]

At any rate, my support is for the idea in general; it generates enough interest and expands on what kinds of characters it allows people to make, if done right. If there’s another set of names pushed out that are a little more clear on what each role does at a glance, I wouldn’t be opposed to looking over them and giving them my support.

Good luck with the suggestion .o7

[The7thLain]

In my opinion, even if it is just a role name change, this would be jarring to most characters in medical at this time. Most of the dedicated and regular players in medical are styled as Physicians. Medical doctors, or otherwise practice and clinically focused characters. While this name change is just that, a name change, it shifts people and characters that are focused on being caregivers into medical researchers. I know its not a science merger or anything like that, but, which sounds more medical care oriented? Physician, Surgeon, Trauma Physician, or Biological Researcher? Psychologist/Psychiatrist or Mental Health Researcher? As a CMO, or physician, I am not here to do "biological research," I am here to treat and heal patients to the best of my abilities. Practicing medical doctors don't just suddenly go into research, usually. You are changing the feel of medical from one that is practice and care focused hospital setting into one that is instead more akin to a laboratory environment, even if there are no mechanical changes. It is the image of the MedBay that is being changed here as opposed to anything else, and I also feel that what you are trying to change, the issues of """"realism""""" are not an issue in medical to the point where it impacts gameplay in my view, and even if it is, this is not only limited to medical. Role-playing matters, but this is a game. There are going to be gamey mechanics be they in medical or elsewhere, and switching job titles and by proxy, changing the workplace identities of literally every character in medical that isn't a chemist is not productive or conducive to actually changing things and will instead just make people who play med more uncomfortable. Telling people what they want or need by using arguments they may not be receptive to, especially when they main the department, is not a good strategy, in my opinion. The pro's of your argument are not pro's to everyone, and I can see medplayers taking issue with some even being pro's. I don't believe this is a worthwhile change as the impact to the medbay's image would be detrimental to the characters there while not addressing the underlying mechanics of the issues this is attempting to sidestep.

The names are also just. . . Not good. I think maybe people would be more receptive if the names had a more medical slant to them as opposed to the very science-y "Biology" given that we already have a role called "Xenobiologist." And yes, I know they are different, but its the image and impression they leave.

My experience in medical is that I have been a filthy MedMain for a year now, predominantly in the Psychiatrist/Psychologist, and recently CMO roles, with other experience as a Chemist, Physician, and Surgeon. Started as an intern, also. 

Edited July 29, 2020 by TheBurninSherman
added bit about names needing medical slant

[BoryaTheSlayer]

@Coalf As a note, the thread being named "No more medical" did mislead a few people, me included.

[Coalf]

29 minutes ago, TheBurninSherman said:

In my opinion, even if it is just a role name change, this would be jarring to most characters in medical at this time. Most of the dedicated and regular players in medical are styled as Physicians. Medical doctors, or otherwise practice and clinically focused characters. While this name change is just that, a name change, it shifts people and characters that are focused on being caregivers into medical researchers. I know its not a science merger or anything like that, but, which sounds more medical care oriented? Physician, Surgeon, Trauma Physician, or Biological Researcher? Psychologist/Psychiatrist or Mental Health Researcher? As a CMO, or physician, I am not here to do "biological research," I am here to treat and heal patients to the best of my abilities. Practicing medical doctors don't just suddenly go into research, usually. You are changing the feel of medical from one that is practice and care focused hospital setting into one that is instead more akin to a laboratory environment, even if there are no mechanical changes. It is the image of the MedBay that is being changed here as opposed to anything else, and I also feel that what you are trying to change, the issues of """"realism""""" are not an issue in medical to the point where it impacts gameplay in my view, and even if it is, this is not only limited to medical. Role-playing matters, but this is a game. There are going to be gamey mechanics be they in medical or elsewhere, and switching job titles and by proxy, changing the workplace identities of literally every character in medical that isn't a chemist is not productive or conducive to actually changing things and will instead just make people who play med more uncomfortable. Telling people what they want or need by using arguments they may not be receptive to, especially when they main the department, is not a good strategy, in my opinion. The pro's of your argument are not pro's to everyone, and I can see medplayers taking issue with some even being pro's. I don't believe this is a worthwhile change as the impact to the medbay's image would be detrimental to the characters there while not addressing the underlying mechanics of the issues this is attempting to sidestep.

The names are also just. . . Not good. I think maybe people would be more receptive if the names had a more medical slant to them as opposed to the very science-y "Biology" given that we already have a role called "Xenobiologist." And yes, I know they are different, but its the image and impression they leave.

My experience in medical is that I have been a filthy MedMain for a year now, predominantly in the Psychiatrist/Psychologist, and recently CMO roles, with other experience as a Chemist, Physician, and Surgeon. Started as an intern, also. 

The names can be changed. If people have such an issue with "Researcher" it can be changed.
The reason I chose the term "Biologist" is because it's a term for "People who muck around with biology". Similarly, to how Engineer is just a blanket term for "People who muck around with technology."

Besides the name change, I've expressed we would also fuse Psychologist and Psychiatrist together. Fuse EMT and Paramedic together. Fuse Physicians/Trauma Physician/Surgeon together. Fuse Nurse/Resident/Intern together. So it's not PURELY a name change, it'll also enable more people to get involved in more procedures and simplify the process.

Physician/Nurse/Trauma Physician/Surgeon in particular are a horribly egregious case of overlapping systems that is excused only because this is how it is in real life and people keep using that argument to excuse this horrid system. Imagine it with any other department.
Miner/Minelet/Super Miner/Ultra miner?
Security Officer/Cuff Only Security Officer/Shotgun Specialist/Giga Chad Security Officer
Engineer/Door Technician/Engichad/Engod?

I am not aiming to fix medical as a whole. I am aiming to divorce medical from the very real job of a doctor. Because we keep trying to assign roles and specialists that exist IRL to mechanics and depth, we do not have and will probably never have.
This has resulted in medical being reworked and refurbished on the requirements, restrictions, roles and attitudes multiple times. A thing no other job has gone through in the scope/size/severity as medical has in the last few years. It has been unproductive, circular and repetitive, with the same points being brought up each time and each time.
 

15 minutes ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

@Coalf As a note, the thread being named "No more medical" did mislead a few people, me included.

Noted, will change.

[The7thLain]

11 minutes ago, Coalf said:

Besides the name change, I've expressed we would also fuse Psychologist and Psychiatrist together. Fuse EMT and Paramedic together. Fuse Physicians/Trauma Physician/Surgeon together. Fuse Nurse/Resident/Intern together. So it's not PURELY a name change, it'll also enable more people to get involved in more procedures and simplify the process.

Physician/Nurse/Trauma Physician/Surgeon in particular are a horribly egregious case of overlapping systems that is excused only because this is how it is in real life and people keep using that argument to excuse this horrid system

I am confused as to why this is an issue now as there is this thread detailing what exactly the various roles should be doing.

 We even have a handy chart for surgeries now, for who can do what. I feel as if the issues you are trying to address have been well, addressed in the previously mentioned thread.

As for detaching the role from that of a doctor, I disagree with that on the very base level and notion of it. You're not only turning medical into something else completely from what it is now, you are also invalidating the characters and workplace identities of literally every single existing char in medbay aside from chemists and paramedics/EMTs. I disagree with the logic and rationale and think it is not the right decision to make going forwards.

Edited July 29, 2020 by TheBurninSherman

[Coalf]

6 minutes ago, TheBurninSherman said:

I am confused as to why this is an issue now as there is this thread detailing what exactly the various roles should be doing.

 We even have a handy chart for surgeries now, for who can do what. I feel as if the issues you are trying to address have been well, addressed in the previously mentioned thread.

As for detaching the role from that of a doctor, I disagree with that on the very base level and notion of it. You're not only turning medical into something else completely from what it is now, you are also invalidating the characters and workplace identities of literally every single existing char in medbay aside from chemists and paramedics/EMTs. I disagree with the logic and rationale and think it is not the right decision to make going forwards.

Yes, that is exactly the issue.
The fact you need an entire ass chart.
WHY do you need it? Why exactly? This is a symptom, not a solution!
You have 3 medical professionals, they do exactly the same job, they're expected to do exactly the same job. Yet 2 of them can't because, because this chart tells them they can't? Not only that, but this chart doesn't even have a nurse! There is a debate on right now about what a nurse should even do, because as you are aware we don't have enough complexity and mechanical depth to justify a nurse doing everything they do in real life, because at that point they might as well be acting as Physicians since all these jobs are so extremely similar.

And if someones characters identity HINGES so strongly on being refereed to as "Trauma Physician" rather than "Physician", nobody is taking that away. They will still be a doctor, they will still have a doctorate, they will still have all of your backstory, qualifications etc. etc. etc.
The difference is, that you won't be named "Doctor" on station, and there won't be 4 flavors of you.
 

[WickedCybs]

I am quite bad at collecting my thoughts into many paragraphs so I will instead latch onto what Haydizzle said. I like the idea behind the change and I would definitely be interested in seeing the change in-game, retooling a character is not really the biggest issue to me. It has been a bit annoying to experience how closely IRL expectations are placed on medical so divorcing that is very welcome. I do understand the need to keep things recognizable, though it starts to becoming limiting and obstructive when leaned on heavily.

Will likely not add much else beyond this but I figured it would be well to show some support. 

Edited July 29, 2020 by WickedCybs

[Roostercat]

To be honest, no matter what the intention is, people are absolutely going to interpret this as changing Medical into a research role. You can't change them into a 'Biologist' and then expect that NOT to happen. Not to mention new players or people who don't read the forums who won't even see this thread, who will be completely confused as to what medical is supposed to be. 

On top of that, the different roles DO generate RP. As someone who played Nurse for multiple months straight, the RP you get from the job varies wildly from surgeon, as it is a lot more focused on things like aftercare, or simple checkups. People seem to make the mistake of thinking they just do paperwork and stuff like that when it couldn't be farther from the truth. Things I used to do as Nurse never happen now that I play Surgeon. 

For example, whereas a surgeon is expected to handle complex life saving surgeries on the spot and the like, a physician might be expected to do general health checkups and so on, which do in fact get asked for. 

As for the argument that it would separate the arguments of it not being realistic, this is inescapable. Just switching the titles will not fix this as they are still doing the exact same thing as before and still have MD's, making them doctors. Not to mention this happens in most of the other departments as well.

I would go over how it completely alienates all of the medical players but that has been said by a lot of other people so I will just skip that part.

Another thing I want to touch on is that just because Star Trek did it doesn't mean it justifies doing it here. We are not Star Trek. We are the Aurora. Using a different Sci-Fi universe to handwave huge changes like this is not only poor form but sets a bad precedent for changes in the future, regardless of intent.

All in all I consider this a poor change. It changes things for what seems like the sake of change and really won't serve any purpose than to confuse everyone, alienate the current medical players, and more or less force them to rewrite their characters partially. Even if the intent is not to change them into research, that is how everyone is going to interpret it regardless.

[Coalf]

6 minutes ago, Roostercat said:

To be honest, no matter what the intention is, people are absolutely going to interpret this as changing Medical into a research role. You can't change them into a 'Biologist' and then expect that NOT to happen. Not to mention new players or people who don't read the forums who won't even see this thread, who will be completely confused as to what medical is supposed to be. 

On top of that, the different roles DO generate RP. As someone who played Nurse for multiple months straight, the RP you get from the job varies wildly from surgeon, as it is a lot more focused on things like aftercare, or simple checkups. People seem to make the mistake of thinking they just do paperwork and stuff like that when it couldn't be farther from the truth. Things I used to do as Nurse never happen now that I play Surgeon. 

For example, whereas a surgeon is expected to handle complex life saving surgeries on the spot and the like, a physician might be expected to do general health checkups and so on, which do in fact get asked for. 

As for the argument that it would separate the arguments of it not being realistic, this is inescapable. Just switching the titles will not fix this as they are still doing the exact same thing as before and still have MD's, making them doctors. Not to mention this happens in most of the other departments as well.

I would go over how it completely alienates all of the medical players but that has been said by a lot of other people so I will just skip that part.

Another thing I want to touch on is that just because Star Trek did it doesn't mean it justifies doing it here. We are not Star Trek. We are the Aurora. Using a different Sci-Fi universe to handwave huge changes like this is not only poor form but sets a bad precedent for changes in the future, regardless of intent.

All in all I consider this a poor change. It changes things for what seems like the sake of change and really won't serve any purpose than to confuse everyone, alienate the current medical players, and more or less force them to rewrite their characters partially. Even if the intent is not to change them into research, that is how everyone is going to interpret it regardless.

1) People can go pound sand with their interpretation. The rest was answered above.

2) You can do that RP with this change too.

3) See above.

4) It's not adhered to in other departments. Detaching it will fix it because you can't attribute value to from real-life roles to roles in-game if they don't exist.

5)  Already answered all of those.

6) All of our departments are detached from their real-life counterparts and more connected to their sci-fi counterparts. This is a sci-fi universe and by giving it a unique name we can attach our own identity to it. It sets a better precedent.

7)  I consider the current medical setup poor. I've explained in detail what it aims to change, read the thread before you post next time. And people can go pound sand with their interpretations.

[Roostercat]

2 minutes ago, Coalf said:

1) People can go pound sand with their interpretation. The rest was answered above.

2) You can do that RP with this change too.

3) See above.

4) It's not adhered to in other departments. Detaching it will fix it because you can't attribute value to from real-life roles to roles in-game if they don't exist.

5)  Already answered all of those.

6) All of our departments are detached from their real-life counterparts and more connected to their sci-fi counterparts. This is a sci-fi universe and by giving it a unique name we can attach our own identity to it. It sets a better precedent.

7)  I consider the current medical setup poor. I've explained in detail what it aims to change, read the thread before you post next time. And people can go pound sand with their interpretations.

I did read the thread. And telling people to fuck off and deal with it when they interpret something means you clearly didn't think about it too hard. The fact you seem to not care about the feedback only worsens my impressions on both the result and the intentions of this thread overall.

Doing that RP is made harder by the fact everyone is the same damn role now, so you'd have multiple people stepping on eachother trying to do the exact same thing

The point about it not solving the problem in the first place still stands, you saying 'see above' and ignoring it does not help.

As for number 6, that isn't even what I said. I said you can't use Star Trek as an excuse.

[Coalf]

Just now, Roostercat said:

I did read the thread. And telling people to fuck off and deal with it when they interpret something means you clearly didn't think about it too hard. The fact you seem to not care about the feedback only worsens my impressions on both the result and the intentions of this thread overall.

Doing that RP is made harder by the fact everyone is the same damn role now, so you'd have multiple people stepping on eachother trying to do the exact same thing

The point about it not solving the problem in the first place still stands, you saying 'see above' and ignoring it does not help.

As for number 6, that isn't even what I said. I said you can't use Star Trek as an excuse.

I had taken feedback and I thought about the interpretations. This is why I have clarified my intentions multiple times, changed the thread name and agreed with both Borya and Hay that the names aren't that good and better ones would be better.
What I hadn't taken, is sheer disagreement, which you seem to think is feedback. If I took your "feedback" then I would have closed the thread at this point and agreed with you, I don't agree with you.
Further, if you had read the thread you would not have said "it's a change for the sake of change". I have given multiple hours of my life giving people responses and explaining in detail what my intentions are, and then I get told that it's a change for the sake of change? At that point I can't believe you if you say you have read the thread, because you would not have made that claim unless your aim was to try and discredit me based on what you assume is my intent, than what I have proven is my intent.

People already have the same role. Tell me exactly how a Trauma Physician and a Doctor don't step on each others toes, despite the fact that they cover 80% of each other's jobs. Tell me exactly how an EMT and a Paramedic don't step on each other's toes besides the fact there is literally no difference between them in-game. Tell me exactly how a medical Resident and a medical Intern aren't stepping on each others toes despite being literally the same job. Nurse is the only job that is arguable and was a poor example for my case, but guess what, even right now people are talking about giving a Nurse more privileges and ergo more overlap with a medical doctor.

Because I already answered it to detail above how I think it solves problems. Again, and again, and again, and again.

I didn't use Star Trek as an excuse. I used Star Trek as an example.

[Skull132]

I sometimes feel like I should pay more attention to the other half of server management. Note that this is my first time encountering the surgery chart, which is now apparently active practice in the administration when it comes to dealing with issues of that nature.

While it works as a stop-gap, as Coalf pointed out, the entire chart existing is a bad thing. It is hidden information to anyone who doesn't actively follow the server's moves (so to a regular player); it is arbitrary information, in that the information it contains is not at all supported by mechanics. The old separation of just having the Medical Doctor and the Surgeon was better, because the OR is a concrete thing, ergo, it is intuitive enough to link Surgeon to the OR and to create a separation between the two roles. But when it comes to whatever is written into that chart, there ain't no good way to intuitively figure that shit out based on ingame information.

The next point is the matter of how many jobs cover each others fields partially and how many of them lack a concrete mechanical distinction between the roles. With some of them being completely unsupported. While yes, we are a roleplay server, we are a roleplay server in a roleplaying game. As Coalf pointed out, a lot of the roles do the exact same thing just in mildly different flavours/with different restrictions, which later on leads to conflict (either ingame or in player complaints, as demonstrated recently).

Also, do try to think of this from the perspective that this is Le Future. Due to the advances of medical technology, it certainly doesn't make sense to have as much hospitality staff around, for example. You can just cryo/pump someone full of chems at least 50% of the time and they'll be off. There's no real reason to have a nurse on stand-by with a medical doctor. If we actually choose to pursue more medical updates in code, with ideas such as auto-docs and whatever regularly making rounds, then some other roles would also become suspect. Presently, beyond chemistry and command staff, you only really need a general medical practitioner, a surgeon, and perhaps a runner-lad/EMT-type-lad, depending on what equipment we give them.

Final point, names are a detail. As Coalf pointed out above, disagreeing with the names as he proposed them doesn't necessarily mean you have to bin the entire suggestion. Coming up with alternatives is plenty helpful, as was the case for the chemistry PR. I don't personally agree with Coalf's name suggestions either, but I'm struggling currently to come up with better alternatives without stooping to horrible specifics, like "Triage Technicians" and whatever else has also been proposed.

[The7thLain]

If I may suggest something more constructive from my last response, that well, came off as combative, I would suggest this.

1. Fix the names to be more medically inclined and less geared towards research. They don't have to be true to life, but you've already heard no "biology" comments from numerous others, and myself earlier, so I won't go on anymore about that. I'm sure as a community, people could decide on better names if this is indeed going to go through.
Some names I have seen floating around are ones like:
- Medical Intern
- Field Doctor (Combination of Physician/TP/Nurse)
- Field Surgeon
- Psychiatrist
- Biomedical Chemist or just Chemist as is.
- Rescue Technician as a combination of EMT/Paramedic does sound kinda nice to me, so that one might not need a change from the OP.

2. Combine the roles of Physician and Trauma Physician together, leave Nurse as its own role or bind it into the mix of those two after deciding or knowing what nurses do. Leave Surgeon as it is, maybe with a rename, as I do feel like a specialist role for surgery is better for RP and provides variety in the same way an Atmos Tech provides variety to the normal Station Engineer, while also cutting down on the byzantine surgery chart that I posted earlier that you mentioned was part of the problem. I still do not agree with that, but its not gonna get anyone anywhere if we just argue and don't try to compromise.

3. Combining Psychologist and Psychiatrist into one role is not detrimental in my opinion, I have been a Psychiatrist main for a little more than a year now and I do not see how it could be harmful really aside from the flavour of a character that maybe could be adjusted as needed. Felt the need to comment on this role specifically as it is the one I am the most experienced with out of all my roles on the station.

Sorry if I seemed aggressive or combative, I have nothing personal against you, however, I wanted to convey my opinion. Upon looking at my previous posts, I realised I didn't really have anything constructive to say and was just criticizing without giving an alternative, which was my bad. Medical is clunky and has been since I started playing it, brainmed or otherwise, but I have stayed with it and am apprehensive to changes because most changes we have seen are not objectively good or bad, and with any change comes a trade-off. I still do not agree with many of the reasons behind the change, however, I also don't want to just argue and be a "REEEEEEEEEE MED CHANGES" medmain, as the stereotype goes for most medical mains. I hope the points I mentioned above can be helpful to some degree or at least provoke some thought.

Edited July 29, 2020 by TheBurninSherman
Added a series of names I saw from various sources. I take no credit for the names as they were not originally made by myself.

[Skull132]

There's a difference between nurses and atmos techs tho. Atmos techs have concrete mechanics to back them up. Nurses do not. There is no mechanical backing for hospitality staff, specially after gutting viro.

[The7thLain]

8 minutes ago, Skull132 said:

There's a difference between nurses and atmos techs tho. Atmos techs have concrete mechanics to back them up. Nurses do not. There is no mechanical backing for hospitality staff, specially after gutting viro.

I agree that Nurse has very little mechanical relevance and can take a slot from a doctor which is why I mentioned really learning what a nurse should do. I was comparing an Atmos Tech to a Surgeon, not a Nurse, but I do agree with your point that Nurse needs to be looked at if not completely merged with one of if not both of the other Physician roles.

Edited July 29, 2020 by TheBurninSherman

[Coalf]

10 minutes ago, TheBurninSherman said:

If I may suggest something more constructive from my last response, that well, came off as combative, I would suggest this.

1. Fix the names to be more medically inclined and less geared towards research. They don't have to be true to life, but you've already heard no "biology" comments from numerous others, and myself earlier, so I won't go on anymore about that. I'm sure as a community, people could decide on better names if this is indeed going to go through.
Some names I have seen floating around are ones like:
- Medical Intern
- Field Doctor (Combination of Physician/TP/Nurse)
- Field Surgeon
- Psychiatrist
- Biomedical Chemist or just Chemist as is.
- Rescue Technician does sound kinda nice to me, so that one might not need a change from the OP.

2. Combine the roles of Physician and Trauma Physician together, leave Nurse as its own role or bind it into the mix of those two after deciding or knowing what nurses do. Leave Surgeon as it is, maybe with a rename, as I do feel like a specialist role for surgery is better for RP and provides variety in the same way an Atmos Tech provides variety to the normal Station Engineer, while also cutting down on the byzantine surgery chart that I posted earlier that you mentioned was part of the problem. I still do not agree with that, but its not gonna get anyone anywhere if we just argue and don't try to compromise.

3. Combining Psychologist and Psychiatrist into one role is not detrimental in my opinion, I have been a Psychiatrist main for a little more than a year now and I do not see how it could be harmful really aside from the flavour of a character that maybe could be adjusted as needed. Felt the need to comment on this role specifically as it is the one I am the most experienced with out of all my roles on the station.

Sorry if I seemed aggressive or combative, I have nothing personal against you, however, I wanted to convey my opinion. Upon looking at my previous posts, I realised I didn't really have anything constructive to say and was just criticizing without giving an alternative, which was my bad. Medical is clunky and has been since I started playing it, brainmed or otherwise, but I have stayed with it and am apprehensive to changes because most changes we have seen are not objectively good or bad, and with any change comes a trade-off. I still do not agree with many of the reasons behind the change, however, I also don't want to just argue and be a "REEEEEEEEEE MED CHANGES" medmain, as the stereotype goes for most medical mains. I hope the points I mentioned above can be helpful to some degree.

1) I agree with your reasoning here. I am not fully set on the roles as you propose them. But yes, people are right that the term "Biologist" isn't culturally as broad as the word "Engineer". Which might cause confusion in new players.

2) I am not sure about the Nurse. While I agree with the Physician and TP. I don't really have enough experience playing Nurses to concretely say if they should be fused or not.

3) Yep, psych is the one role I got the least resistance on fusing. I think most people playing it agree that while the difference between a psychologist and psychiatrist IRL is important. It's un-needed on station.

Also don't apologize. I know that changing a department is always scary, I've gone through this too. I also apologize to you and @Roostercat. I got snippy, I didn't mean to get snippy. I just got frustrated.

[Chada1]

I'd like to point out, that if we go the 'Biologistics' route for medical, we have no need for naming the other roles as biologists, so we can be more creative. At that point, it's just redundant to name them that way, since if you're in the 'Biologistics' department, it's already clear you're a biologist to anyone looking at the department list and seeing your job there.

In reverse, I'd say keep the department rename, and name the jobs something more clear to what they're meant to do. To figure out these jobs, we need to spitball.

3 hours ago, Coalf said:

...

You need to make this thread move past the arguments for why phase as they're all here already, and encourage people to come up with new names for the jobs. You will go in circles if you keep going on like this.

[Fire and Glory]

Ye, I think merging the medical roles some is a good idea. Although I've not played much medical nowadays, I did like it back when you had the paramedic, and the doctor, who would have the sub-title of surgeon, medical doctor, or...physician? And it denoted what they would be doing provided they're not needed else-where. You had nurses too, they were alright.

You can't call me a medical main now though, so my opinions with a grain of salt.

The suggested names are too sciencey though, I agree. Even if the mechanics stay the same, it'll change how the department feels, particularly as new characters come in. I don't have much of an idea what to change them to, though.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Fire and Glory

[Chada1]

- Medical Intern/Orderly (This seems fine to me, but resident could probably be just thrown out entirely, too much of a real world parallel, maybe if there is an alt-title it should be orderly instead, since intern is basically saying you're training for something, and an orderly is just an extra hand.)
- Medical Specialist (Combination of Physician/TP/Nurse) (This was proposed by another person, and it does seem to fit to me, instead of MD's, doctors in our setting could have MS's (Medical Specialties) which are accreditations and depart heavily from the real world.)
- Surgical Specialist (This is clear and to the point, could also be an MS.)
- Psych Specialist (This is probably a better idea than mental health researcher and includes that kinda stuff.)
- Biomedical Chemist/Chemist (This I don't know how to fix...)
- Emergency/Triage Respondant (EMT, Triage is a well known word but isn't as well known as Emergency in that sense, this should make it different enough from the real world EMT/Paramed services that noone conflates it too much.)

This is the best I can do to come up with ideas wise and since it's still all within the biologistics department, it's already clear they're all biologists, again. This also corporatifies all of the roles, any other ideas?

Alternatively, I like literally all of the burningshermans ideas.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Chada1

[kermit]

I was quite hesitant to post this at first, but a bunch of other medical players pushed me too after we discussed this suggestion a fair bit. I'll preface this by saying that this is a long post, but we spent a while going through all of the posts here trying to isolate all of your arguments and I wanted to tackle each of your points in-depth by raising my own arguments and those of others who I've spoken to about this suggestion. If I've misinterpreted any of your points, I apologise, as that was the case with my first comment here. There's also probably repetition throughout this, but that's because I've not written this in one sitting, but over a day. There's a summary at the bottom if you've only the time to skim over it, but I do encourage you to read the elaborated points I've made beneath your arguments.

Anyway, starting with your first point:

It allows people to do more things as their skill set is more broad:

• 'It’s going to rename them all, and give everyone a wider skill set so they can apply it in more situations.' -- The skill sets are already fairly broad. A trauma physician can do everything a trauma physician is ‘meant’ to do, but can also do the basics of the other specialities. What this means is, if there is a role not present in the medical bay, the trauma physician can fill in. The same can be said for a physician, if there is no trauma physician, the regular physician can fill in stabilising patients in the ICU. There is no in-game condition that cannot be treated by a (trauma) physician, unless they happen to lack a chemist, so there is no argument that, should medical be filled with a dozen arterial/fracture cases, only the surgeon has anything to do, as (trauma) physicians can treat AB via alternative routes, limb fractures via alternative routes, or ask the surgeon if they can reduce the load by helping in the second OR. How exactly do you think merging the physician roles will broaden the responsibilities of, say, a trauma physician?
• '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.' -- By merging the roles, you remove the need for teamwork and coordination. If a critical patient comes in with severe AB and fractures, then as a ‘biological/medical specialist/researcher’ could, first, stabilise them in the ICU, then move them to an OR and fix them up, then move them to the GTR to make sure they’re all fine. This cuts out most interaction within the medical department when there’s a large intake of patients as there is no need to talk to another player. Working as a team becomes a choice with a change like this. If the problem is that half of the physician roles are sat around doing nothing depending on the cases that come in, then perhaps we can figure out alternative ways to treat all of the conditions in game, each with their own pros and cons so that, regardless of the case, no one is sat around doing nothing. 
•  "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." -- By making all of the physicians capable of surgery, it devalues the job of a chemist rather severely. There will be no need to stock chemicals which treat organ damage as, now, all of the biologistics researchers/specialists are capable of just whisking the patient to an OR to open them up and slap some regenerative membrane on it. There is no need for a biologistics researcher/specialist to try to increase blood oxygenation to allow alkysine to have an effect on repairing the brain because they can now just whisk them to an OR and splash some regenerative membrane on the brain. Entire chemicals will become useless as they will see even less use than some of them currently do - namely adipemcina, peridaxon, pneumalin, oculine (imidazoline), alkysine, bicaridine ODs. If the physician roles are rolled into one, making them all capable of surgery, what do you believe will happen to these organ-regen. chemicals which are generally meant for (trauma) physicians to treat organ damage without the need for a surgeon? 
• The clear boundaries allow the players themselves to ‘specialise’. A player who primarily plays surgery can just do surgery without having to know how to get someone out of asystole in the most effective way, they go in knowing that it’s a relatively stressful role; a player who primarily mains physician can just handle minor-cases and the exams and not have to fuss about having to learn the surgical procedures, they go in knowing that it’s a more relaxed role, presuming you have a surgeon/trauma physician to handle critical/surgical cases; a player who primarily plays trauma physician can specialise in getting people out of asystole in the most effective way without having to deal with minor injuries or surgeries, they go in wanting to deal with the intense and stressful cases. By combining all of the roles, players now need to be proficient in every field of Medical, regardless of whether it’s their strongpoint or not. 

This suggestion removes the unnecessary restrictions placed upon roles.

• 'I said the titles are arbitrary and useless, which they are.' -- I disagree that the restrictions are unnecessary. Bringing up a point I mentioned earlier, it’s these ‘arbitrary’ restrictions which generate roleplay and make the gameplay enjoyable. By having duties split between roles, then there are hurdles that can present themselves during your treatment of a patient. If you’re a physician or trauma physician with a patient in-need of surgery due to their severely damaged heart, but the only surgeon is busy treating an arterial bleeding case, then that’s a hurdle you need to try and figure out - you will need to consider alternative avenues such as peridaxon/adipemcina, you may need to hail the surgeon over radio and say there is a patient who is more dire in regards to triage and needs surgery more urgently. That is a dilemma that enhances gameplay and roleplay, by homogenising the physician roles you will not have this issue. Do dilemmas such as these not enhance gameplay and create roleplay that cannot be had with all the physician roles pressed into one?

It prevents people whinging about things being unrealistic.

• '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.' -- Renaming the department and the roles doesn’t change the mechanics and expectations of the job. Whether a physician is called a physician or a biological researcher/specialist doesn’t matter, they will both have the exact same responsibilities and so people will still complain about the responsibilities if they’re unrealistic or not. By merging them into one ‘medical specialist’ job, you may deal with this problem of ‘why is x role capable/not capable of doing this task which they should/shouldn’t be able to do in real life?’, but then you replace it with people complaining about ‘but it’s unrealistic that a doctor is specialised in every field of medicine when it takes 2-4 years to specialise in just one field’. Renaming and merging roles isn’t a solution to this. Also, I don’t see why this is a problem, maybe it is because I can’t see from the perspective of developers, but so what if people are whining about realism? Developers can just ignore these people, if they wish, it’s not like everyone in Medical is going on about realistic expectations, and if they are, then that’s the audience you’re catering to and should tailor changes to - if a playerbase wants a more realistic medical system/role layout then, in my opinion, deliver a more realistic medical system/role layout or, alternatively, don’t try to make it less realistic to spite this audience.

This is how it is for other departments: '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.'

• How other departments operate shouldn’t be a factor in how Medical ought to operate - instead you should consider who is playing the department and how many people are playing it, as well as why these departments may have a single role. In the case of science, less people play the department, and so there’s little incentive to split up the role otherwise there will, at no point, be a full roster, which is not the case for Medical as there are more players, meaning the roles can be more split to ensure everyone is working as a team.  Take security for example: it’s divided into cadet, officer, detective, warden, CSI. Each of these roles have their own clearly defined responsibilities and generally do not over-step on one another unless one of the roles is missing - this is the same way Medical works. If you argue that Medical should be unified with one role simply because Science and Engineering are, then should we not homogenise Security, Supply and Service into one role? The point here is homogenisation works for some departments, and for other departments it can ruin the experience. 
• I’ve skimmed through all the posts in this thread several times trying to figure out all of your arguments. You say homogenisation of Medical will result in less people whining about realism and will lead to broader duties for the role (though I’ve argued against this). Do you see any other benefits to the roles being merged into one, have I missed any other points you’ve raised? I’ve never really played in other communities, but from my observations, homogenised roles tend to be characteristics of LRP/MRP servers - sure science is unified in one role, but I think it could be split up to allow better RP (splitting scientist into Exploratory Chemist/Circuit Inventor/R&D Scientist, and whatnot [though I don’t play science so I cannot vouch for how conducive this would be for roleplay, this is just my uninformed opinion]), as is Engineering, though engineering was only merged into one role because no one played the alt-titles, which is not the case in medical.

The physician roles overstep one another constantly due to the overlap of responsibilities.

• '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.' -- Overstepping was a large issue when BrainMed was first introduced, yes, and I severely disliked it. However, as more people have become acquainted with BrainMed and the responsibilities of each role have been more clearly defined (physicians take the minor-moderate cases, trauma physicians take the critical-asystole cases and may often assemble a team of nurses/physicians to help, surgeons take surgical patients after they've been stabilised), people tend to stick to the limitations of their roles - and people do stick to them. The only exceptions to this is during lowpop. when there’s usually only one physician, however even during deadhour, I've been told that when there are multiple physician roles, the boundaries are still usually kept. This hearkens back to my argument regarding the importance of role distinctions, you are permitting everyone to overstep one another as there is no incentive to work as a team. You end up staffing this biologistics department with a handful of super doctors, where one doctor can do every single procedure to treat one patient - if only one patient is admitted in a round with say... severe burning and a fracture, then one doctor can treat the burning and the fractures, whereas with our current role layout, the workload will be divided between a physician/trauma physician treating the burns, and then  a surgeon dealing with the fracture.
• '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.' -- During rounds where the Medical Department is fully staffed, you’ll often see people organising themselves according to their role to ensure the intake of patients runs smoothly - and this is with or without a Chief Medical Officer being present. It is ingrained in how people play Medical, that there are boundaries between the roles and people organise themselves accordingly. By refuting the numerous rounds where this is apparent, you’re generalising the actions of a few individuals who have tended to overstep in the past to everyone who plays Medical - though this is no longer so much of a problem from my view and others. What examples of overstepping can you remember that are still present in Medical today - nowadays, physicians stick to the GTR, trauma physicians stick to the ICU, surgeons stick to the COT, they only deviate from their postings when they’re trying to meet the demands of a specific patient influx when another physician role cannot keep up or if there is a role lacking and their duties have been fully attended to?

Physician and Trauma Physician have few differences - 'Tell me exactly how a Trauma Physician and a Doctor don't step on each others toes, despite the fact that they cover 80% of each other's jobs.', 'We have nowhere near the amount of medical mechanics to justify these role splits.':

• I agree, there is nothing mechanical that separates the two roles. However, they are separated in how the roles act by a substantial amount. When there is both a physician and trauma physician around, these substantial differences between the roles are observable. Have you never played a busy round as a physician role where Medical is fully staffed, because if not, I urge you to as the roles make it several times better? Roleplay-wise having these two roles makes sense to give players choice in how they should roleplay their characters; setting-wise, it makes sense for there to be one role which handles minor incidents and another that handles the emergency cases, and this will be ever more so the case when the setting shifts to that of an expeditionary vessel. Instead of merging these two roles due to a lack of mechanical variance, why not advocate for the development of mechanics which further separate them? There’s a lot of creativity to be had when it comes to developing sci-fi. medical instruments, and these would go way further than just renaming medical to something mildly dissimilar and then making some Frankenstein’s monster out of the roles. While I understand that you need mechanics to back up the need for a role, I also think that the ability for them to act differently to another role also goes a long way.
• A large amount of roleplay you see in the ICU stems from there being a trauma physician present.  On another forum post I went into a lot of depth regarding the importance of the trauma physician role and how much it affects roleplay. "Quite often, you would see a patient in the middle of the ICU in a stasis bag with a trauma physician and a couple of other medical staff looking at a scan planning, in depth, how they would tackle each problem causing the patient’s asystole, with the trauma physician usually being the one taking point. I’m not aware of how many people have been in situations like this but these moments are arguably some of the best moments I’ve had in the year I’ve played in Medical - people all gathering around a stasis-bagged patient, scan in hand, taking around five minutes to just devise a treatment plan for saving someone - and I’ve heard similar from other medical players." I believe the points I raised there are equally valid in this argument, because by homogenising the roles, you're stripping away this ICU/trauma physician roleplay, even though you say, "None of that is being taken away by this change. Said this like 3-4 times already."

Overall, what I have to say can be boiled down into these points:

1. The roles in Medical underpin a lot of what makes a busy round enjoyable in Medical, as the roles create dilemmas and opportunities to have to look for alternative means of treating something.
2. The roles do not make other roles invalid depending on the type of patients being admitted. If all of the patients are surgical ones, (trauma) physicians can ask to reduce the load and help out in an OR, or treat conditions using chemicals instead; if all of the patients are minor cases not in need of surgery, the surgeon can ask to help out in the GTR to reduce the burden on the (trauma) physicians.
3. The roles allow players to specialise, for lack of a better term. You can ‘specialise’ as a trauma physician, going into the round expecting to deal with the more intense cases, gathering a group of the other roles in the event of an asystole case so you can orchestrate the patient’s resuscitation. You can ‘specialise’ as a physician, going into the round just expecting to deal with minor cases, and less so the more stressful ones. You can ‘specialise’ as a surgeon, allowing you to just focus on learning the mechanics for surgery, and less so what chemicals are the most effective at dragging someone out of an asystole.
4. If there is no mechanical variance between roles, then make mechanical variance. There’s creativity to be had here and it can only add to gameplay/roleplay within Medical, as opposed to detracting from it.
5. The structure of other departments shouldn’t determine how the Medical Department is structured. They all have different dynamics and they all have different amounts of active players.

I’m all for renaming the roles to something more vague and detached from reality, but if it begins to remove elements of Medical I and other people find enjoyable, then it’s not something I can get behind.

• Merging Paramedic and E.M.T. and calling them ‘Rescue Technicians’ is fine, I can get behind that, as there is no mechanical, gameplay or roleplay deviance between these roles that cannot be had after merging the roles. With that said though, the suggested name isn’t that different from ‘Emergency Medical Technician’, and so I can already see people associating the expectation of the role closely to that of an EMT. Paramedics/EMTs currently function to a degree higher than both paramedics/EMTs in real life, so perhaps the name could reflect that? I’m at a loss for suggestions though, sadly. Chada’s ‘Emergency Respondent’ suggestion works well too with nothing that suggests either paramedic or EMT.
• Merging the physician roles I can’t get behind for the numerous reasons I’ve mentioned above. I’ve discussed it a bit lately and really thought about it, but I’ve not shifted. There is genuine deviance between how these roles function and act, and I believe that makes up for the lack of mechanics separating them, but even then, mechanics can be suggested to further separate them, and I think that is a far better avenue to take than merging them to the detriment of people who play these roles and enjoy the dynamics they offered.

[Coalf]

1 hour ago, SadKermit said:

stuff

I'll read all of that when I have the energy to argue. I am simply posting that I am aware of this and to thank you for all the feedback.

But before I rest up and get into reading this, I will preface it with this:
If there are people out there saying they don't like this change, and they haven't commented, I recommend they comment.
If I see someone who hasn't commented, talk about how I didn't listen to them, in discord or game. I will make their Maxilla impact their Sacrum at lightning speed.
 

[Roostercat]

I agree with pretty much everything Kermit had to say. More or less what I have attempted to convey, but looking back on my previous posts and discord conversations, my comments have been more like angry rambling than anything constructive, which I apologize for, so Kermit puts it a lot better.