Merge and Standardise Medical Roles

[Carver]

1 hour ago, William Murdoch said:

Physicians are allowed to perform the life saving surgeries according to the recently updated surgery wiki (assuming no surgeon is around).

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Surgery

That chart shows me that First Responders are effectively useless, and there's still a fascinating amount of arbitrary limitations - between physicians being entirely unable to do a myriad of lifesaving organ surgeries, and surgeons being arbitrarily unable to replace limbs with prosthetics (thus forcing roboticist characters to have surgery training, which is wonderfully terrible).

[DatSamTho]

20 hours ago, Carver said:

That chart shows me that First Responders are effectively useless, and there's still a fascinating amount of arbitrary limitations - between physicians being entirely unable to do a myriad of lifesaving organ surgeries, and surgeons being arbitrarily unable to replace limbs with prosthetics (thus forcing roboticist characters to have surgery training, which is wonderfully terrible).

First responders are meant to be able to quickly get a patient to the medbay, and stabilise them. It makes absolutely zero sense why they would need to be able to perform any type of surgery, and if they suddenly were able to, it would mess up 99% of EMT characters.

 

Besides, how often do you have a character die because of a damaged stomach, liver or kidneys? There's total organ failure, sure, but it's incredibely rare, and usually (Fuck you, energy crossbow) happens due to the player's mistake. People's action have consequences. I think it'd be pretty bad for people to go "lolz, let me wrestle the spider, if I get an arterial the EMT will fix me anyways :)))))" Cloning was removed for the same reason, I believe.

Edited February 6, 2021 by tomkiel

[Carver]

7 hours ago, tomkiel said:

Besides, how often do you have a character die because of a damaged stomach, liver or kidneys? There's total organ failure, sure, but it's incredibely rare, and usually (Fuck you, energy crossbow) happens due to the player's mistake. People's action have consequences. I think it'd be pretty bad for people to go "lolz, let me wrestle the spider, if I get an arterial the EMT will fix me anyways :)))))" Cloning was removed for the same reason, I believe.

Let me recall to you a fabled piece of historical bullshit re-added in recent months known as Appendicitis, a.k.a, 'a random event that exists solely to kill you without medical intervention'. Let's also note that things like spiders are not always avoidable, especially in lower populations where surgeons are a thing of myth.

7 hours ago, tomkiel said:

First responders are meant to be able to quickly get a patient to the medbay, and stabilise them. It makes absolutely zero sense why they would need to be able to perform any type of surgery, and if they suddenly were able to, it would mess up 99% of EMT characters.

First Responders do what every Medical Doctor did before FR/EMTs were even added to this game, but just with more limitations that render them highly questionable in a medical system where organ damage is the only thing that actually kills people. If there's a worry of characters being affected, I don't see why one couldn't slightly adjust Medical's baseline requirements to - in the scope of this suggestion - render Medical Officers a more 'free' role (though MD/Physician as-is currently has very minimal asking requirements in character creation besides 'be a grown adult with a related education').

[Shenaanigans]

1 hour ago, Carver said:

Let me recall to you a fabled piece of historical bullshit re-added in recent months known as Appendicitis, a.k.a, 'a random event that exists solely to kill you without medical intervention'. Let's also note that things like spiders are not always avoidable, especially in lower populations where surgeons are a thing of myth.

Appendicitis now only appears if there is a Surgeon on the manifest, and spider toxin can be countered with dylovene which is found in the standard medical vendors or could easily be made by a Scientist. If it's a white spider, the eggs can be filtered from the blood via dialysis before it becomes something you need to extract.

I understand the point here about EMTs not having a mechanical something that it is strictly theirs in the way that Surgeons and Chemists do, but if there is an EMT it's understood by the rest of the medbay that they are the ones running out to calls to retrieve patients so long as they are able. A Physician or Surgeon running out to do it for them is acting outside their bounds and should be ahelped.

[Carver]

2 hours ago, Shenaanigans said:

Appendicitis now only appears if there is a Surgeon on the manifest, and spider toxin can be countered with dylovene which is found in the standard medical vendors or could easily be made by a Scientist. If it's a white spider, the eggs can be filtered from the blood via dialysis before it becomes something you need to extract.

I understand the point here about EMTs not having a mechanical something that it is strictly theirs in the way that Surgeons and Chemists do, but if there is an EMT it's understood by the rest of the medbay that they are the ones running out to calls to retrieve patients so long as they are able. A Physician or Surgeon running out to do it for them is acting outside their bounds and should be ahelped.

That interaction with eggs unfortunately doesn't seem commonly known, and whilst toxins can be easily solved, the bigger problem with spiders on low-pop in general is that there's a very reasonable chance they come into being with a minimal or otherwise non-existent medical department - who may be staffed by players either inexperienced in the plethora of really niche interactions and mechanics, or in the case of EMTs, just arbitrarily unable to help with some injuries. If a guard spider gets a lucky hit and breaks something important you can be very well trapped in medical under care all round if there's only an EMT, which can be unavoidable with the weird habit spiders have of spawning in unexpected and obnoxious places (fucking arrivals being the worst).

I would hope if any change is made to medical, it's to toss out crippling limitations (that entire surgery chart makes me sick). With the current state of unforgiving mechanics, it's hard to justify keeping these roles niche in what they can do unless further mechanics are added to give alternative forms of treatment for lack of other roles - even if these alternatives are slow or laden with side effects.

[DatSamTho]

6 hours ago, Carver said:

That interaction with eggs unfortunately doesn't seem commonly known, and whilst toxins can be easily solved, the bigger problem with spiders on low-pop in general is that there's a very reasonable chance they come into being with a minimal or otherwise non-existent medical department - who may be staffed by players either inexperienced in the plethora of really niche interactions and mechanics

If somebody doesn't know some niche interaction, changing medical roles isn't going to do anything.

 

6 hours ago, Carver said:

or in the case of EMTs, just arbitrarily unable to help with some injuries. If a guard spider gets a lucky hit and breaks something important you can be very well trapped in medical under care all round if there's only an EMT, which can be unavoidable with the weird habit spiders have of spawning in unexpected and obnoxious places (fucking arrivals being the worst).

This is a complete strawman argument, if you've a broken bone, I'm not going to keep you in medical the whole round, checking in every 5 minutes going "Is your bone fixed yet". I'd even go as far as to say that you having a broken bone would harbour more roleplay scenarios.

[Sparky_hotdog]

I'm going to compare Medical to Security for a minute.

I'm going to skip most of my comparisons, and just get to the part I feel is important. The Chemist & First Responder / Investigations. I'm not going to try and say which compares more to which, but as it stands, Chemists make chems, and First Responders exist to stabilise and retrieve patients. Both of these jobs can be managed without (75% of cases are just easier with medicines, not impossible without, and any member of medbay can do response in the absence of a FR), and both can do a small amount when on their own. Now let's look at Investigations. As is, Security can manage without an investigations team just fine, but they clearly make their life easier, and equally Investigations can manage (albeit to a lesser extent, as you'd expect) without any other security personnel. Yet you don't see anyone complaining that Detectives and CSIs should be super-cops, capable of investigating and working on the front lines.

39 minutes ago, tomkiel said:

This is a complete strawman argument, if you've a broken bone, I'm not going to keep you in medical the whole round, checking in every 5 minutes going "Is your bone fixed yet". I'd even go as far as to say that you having a broken bone would harbour more roleplay scenarios.

As an additional point on this, FRs can give someone a splint, which is often forgot about due to the fact >60% of medical can perform bone repair. And I feel like this ultimately highlights the major issue with this change for me: Sure it sucks to have a broken leg, but a splint can be turned into a cool RP thing. And the same can be said for a whole bunch of less than perfect treatments. If the entire medbay staff were able to do everything, medbay would pretty much just become a mechanics grinder: People would come in, get the best treatment, and leave. Do you know where else you see that kind of thing? Lower-RP servers, where medical doesn't exist to roleplay consequences.

[Carver]

14 hours ago, tomkiel said:

This is a complete strawman argument, if you've a broken bone, I'm not going to keep you in medical the whole round, checking in every 5 minutes going "Is your bone fixed yet". I'd even go as far as to say that you having a broken bone would harbour more roleplay scenarios.

I'm not talking broken bones, those are hardly a concern with the existence of mentioned splints and so forth. I'm talking organ damage, internal bleeding, the genuinely lethal problems that can very unluckily occur in but a single hit and which require another role.

13 hours ago, Sparky_hotdog said:

As an additional point on this, FRs can give someone a splint, which is often forgot about due to the fact >60% of medical can perform bone repair. And I feel like this ultimately highlights the major issue with this change for me: Sure it sucks to have a broken leg, but a splint can be turned into a cool RP thing. And the same can be said for a whole bunch of less than perfect treatments. If the entire medbay staff were able to do everything, medbay would pretty much just become a mechanics grinder: People would come in, get the best treatment, and leave. Do you know where else you see that kind of thing? Lower-RP servers, where medical doesn't exist to roleplay consequences.

I have no issue with splints and the existence of these imperfect, alternative treatments; in fact I'd love even more of them being added, as noted in my quote below. I'm all for more readily accessible, very new player friendly tools.

20 hours ago, Carver said:

- - - With the current state of unforgiving mechanics, it's hard to justify keeping these roles niche in what they can do unless further mechanics are added to give alternative forms of treatment for lack of other roles - even if these alternatives are slow or laden with side effects.

As it stands, FRs currently have levels of limitation near-equivalent to learner roles, and in many cases where there aren't splints or anything as immediately noticeable they can use: they're forced to rely on absurdly niche interactions that aren't readily learned, or in many cases they're just fucked without another role around who can often just do every single thing they can do and more (Physicians not even being a particularly specialized, limited or advanced role either). It leaves them utterly superfluous.

[DatSamTho]

7 hours ago, Carver said:

I'm not talking broken bones, those are hardly a concern with the existence of mentioned splints and so forth. I'm talking organ damage, internal bleeding, the genuinely lethal problems that can very unluckily occur in but a single hit and which require another role.

You die, you wait 20 minutes, you respawn. You sometimes just get really unlucky. But this rarely ever happens, and most of the time it's a fault of the player.

7 hours ago, Carver said:

As it stands, FRs currently have levels of limitation near-equivalent to learner roles, and in many cases where there aren't splints or anything as immediately noticeable they can use: they're forced to rely on absurdly niche interactions that aren't readily learned, or in many cases they're just fucked without another role around who can often just do every single thing they can do and more (Physicians not even being a particularly specialized, limited or advanced role either). It leaves them utterly superfluous.

Yeah. And (at least for me) that's the fun of them. You're not meant to be some super uber doctor.

You rarely get outright hostile antags in lowpop, where the situation of a single FR happens the most, and most deaths, are caused by players not being careful (Lagging as a miner? Well you've got magboots for a reason!) And on highpop, where injuries not caused by players are bound to happen? Well I've never seen a highpop round with just a FR.

[Lordnesh]

There is no reason every department must be the same. Diversity of experiences is a good thing.

 

I like medical the way it is, including the trimming of the roles. I just wish they'd add nurse back in.

[Lmwevil]

time to bump this. compression of the department from surgeons and physicians to some  unclear sci fi medical doctor would be way better, whatever the name is. surgeons bitch when physicians do their jobs and visa versa, just merge them and add a nurse role to RP with people post surgically or do CPR. it would be the final heat death of the universe of 'BUHT YOUI DONT KNOW THAT KIND OF SURGERY!!!!"

[Desven]

On 05/02/2021 at 12:58, Carver said:

That chart shows me that First Responders are effectively useless, and there's still a fascinating amount of arbitrary limitations - between physicians being entirely unable to do a myriad of lifesaving organ surgeries, and surgeons being arbitrarily unable to replace limbs with prosthetics (thus forcing roboticist characters to have surgery training, which is wonderfully terrible).

First responders are anything but useless. I main surgeon and I don't think I could fullfil their role. The mere fact that they know their way around and how to stabilize quick makes it a great role. Also, first responders are not medical doctors. They have medical training, but they are younger, often more agile, characters that are ready for an emergency.

One thing you also have to understand is that unlike LRP servers, medical is not a mortician role. On /tg/ you basically fix corpses to bring them back, and on goon medbay is a self-serving facility, with people often opting to perform surgery on themselves, and stealing all of medical's resources, that is embarrassing to even try to play as a doctor there. You die, you get cloned, and your old body gets recycled, no consequences. In Aurora, your actions (and injuries) have consequences. I know dying sucks, but what I like so much about playing doctor here is that there are high stakes. Sometimes, people get injured in such way that a whole department can't recover them. I've played as a lone doctor at quiet hours in the night, I know it is annoying and you wish you had your miracle drugs to fix someone, but I've learned to love the specialization of roles in here.

 

The only change I would actually like to see is nurse as an alt-title for interns. There are plenty of situations where you do need a nurse, or somebody assisting your patient in general.

[Carver]

3 hours ago, Desven said:

First responders are anything but useless. I main surgeon and I don't think I could fullfil their role. The mere fact that they know their way around and how to stabilize quick makes it a great role. Also, first responders are not medical doctors. They have medical training, but they are younger, often more agile, characters that are ready for an emergency.

One thing you also have to understand is that unlike LRP servers, medical is not a mortician role. On /tg/ you basically fix corpses to bring them back, and on goon medbay is a self-serving facility, with people often opting to perform surgery on themselves, and stealing all of medical's resources, that is embarrassing to even try to play as a doctor there. You die, you get cloned, and your old body gets recycled, no consequences. In Aurora, your actions (and injuries) have consequences. I know dying sucks, but what I like so much about playing doctor here is that there are high stakes. Sometimes, people get injured in such way that a whole department can't recover them. I've played as a lone doctor at quiet hours in the night, I know it is annoying and you wish you had your miracle drugs to fix someone, but I've learned to love the specialization of roles in here.

 

The only change I would actually like to see is nurse as an alt-title for interns. There are plenty of situations where you do need a nurse, or somebody assisting your patient in general.

Specialization is one thing, but there's such a thing as overspecialization to a very limited scope that can be readily covered by other roles. At it stands there is nothing an FR can do that a Physician can not do, bar perhaps that FRs are supposed to demand some degree of IEVA training - something that's not uncommon among Physician characters anyways, given the setting. You mention missing Nurses, but I see FRs as Nurses in ugly coats due to just how limited their ability to help a critical patient is.

For most every other department, when a role is so specialized it tends to have something it does that others (bar the Department head, occasionally) cannot. Atmospheric Techs refining their namesake infrastructure; Detectives and Forensic Technicians sweeping the scenes of a crime for fibers, prints and gunpowder residue; Xenoarchaeologists spending an hour and a half digging to get an artifact that kills them; etc. FRs have no unique mechanics about them, their place is merely being so focused that they can't be asked to do anything else. It's almost criminally punishing to have a role so limited with the current medical mechanics.

[Carpe Venenum]

On 21/02/2021 at 08:51, Lmwevil said:

add a nurse role to RP with people post surgically

This may sound very neat and cool on paper, but when I did this as a nurse, people were at the very least very bewildered that I made security officers go into the post-op room instead of immediately sending them away to the next gunfight. While it can be argued that such behavior is unrealistic and allows for less RP from the medical department, I sorta see their point - it's not very fun to be taken away from the round for longer than you have to, even if you can chat with someone in the meanwhile. I am no expert on the balance between security and antags, far from it, but if a nurse role is to be (re)implemented, there needs to be a mechanical change to force post-op RP to occur, such as a comedown from anesthetics or making bodyparts hurt for some time after surgery.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Carpe Venenum

[Roostercat]

10 hours ago, Carpe Venenum said:

This may sound very neat and cool on paper, but when I did this as a nurse, people were at the very least very bewildered that I made security officers go into the post-op room instead of immediately sending them away to the next gunfight. While it can be argued that such behavior is unrealistic and allows for less RP from the medical department, I sorta see their point - it's not very fun to be taken away from the round for longer than you have to, even if you can chat with someone in the meanwhile. I am no expert on the balance between security and antags, far from it, but if a nurse role is to be (re)implemented, there needs to be a mechanical change to force post-op RP to occur, such as a comedown from anesthetics or making bodyparts hurt for some time after surgery.

To an extent this already exists. Nowadays for some reason I am not entirely 100 percent on, it takes fucking AGES for people's lungs to work again after the healing surgery, meaning they need to be watched during which time the surgeon may be needed elsewhere. In addition you have infections, drug side effects, and trauma that is being really stubborn to contend with after surgery is already over with.

[Lordnesh]

37 minutes ago, Roostercat said:

To an extent this already exists. Nowadays for some reason I am not entirely 100 percent on, it takes fucking AGES for people's lungs to work again after the healing surgery, meaning they need to be watched during which time the surgeon may be needed elsewhere. In addition you have infections, drug side effects, and trauma that is being really stubborn to contend with after surgery is already over with.

It takes so long because there are only four methods to heal oxy damage: tricordrazine, both cryo mixes, and rezadone. And all of them, except the last iirc, heals at like 1 per tick or something.

[Carpe Venenum]

1 hour ago, Roostercat said:

To an extent this already exists. Nowadays for some reason I am not entirely 100 percent on, it takes fucking AGES for people's lungs to work again after the healing surgery, meaning they need to be watched during which time the surgeon may be needed elsewhere. In addition you have infections, drug side effects, and trauma that is being really stubborn to contend with after surgery is already over with.

I guess that's fair, my experience was a long time ago. Maybe make Nurse an alt-title of the intern?

[Lmwevil]

alt title intern is bad, it's a learning role and we shouldn't encourage people to take slots for anything but learning in said roles