Surgery without anasthesia should actually hurt

[Lady_of_Ravens]

On the rare occasion when I've had to do surgery on someone without anesthetic, I've noticed something quite alarming: It has no coded pane effects. No screaming, no stuttering, no nothing. The only time there is a coded pain response is if you make a mistake, and when you do, the patient does scream right through the anesthetic.

This leads me to believe that surgery is painless, and anesthetic merely renders the patient unconscious and has no actual anesthetic effects.

Please fix this.

[Alberyk]

It shows big red text messages of how much you are in pain, and I think it also deals a bit of pain, since, your health indicator goes down when people are doing surgery on you. It is a question of people rping the fact they are being cut open, but, turning pain into something with more gameplay repercussions don't really help in people rping it at all.

Also, when you are asleep, it does not show thoses red pain messages.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

It already does give you huge dramatic red pain text. It's just a question of actually roleplaying out this incomprehensible pain.

I tend to go:

Malprac Tice begins cutting into Awake McNotasleep.

Oh God, the pain!

Awake McNotasleep says, "Um."

Awake McNotasleep exclaims, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

Forced screaming when they're conscious would be fun.

[Garnascus]

You shouldn't EVER be doing surgery without some form of powerful painkiller (oxy) or spoor to knock me out. We are talking about a level of pain that could literally kill you or at best drive you completely and utterly insane. The mere thought alone should make any doctor aboard sick.

[Guest]

So, it's already been established that surgery without anesthesia does hurt, but it only shows it to the victim. Isn't this suggestion sort of redundant?

Isn't it up to the victim to roleplay the pain if they aren't outright forcibly screaming? Just sayin'.

[witchbells]

You shouldn't EVER be doing surgery without some form of powerful painkiller (oxy) or spoor to knock me out. We are talking about a level of pain that could literally kill you or at best drive you completely and utterly insane. The mere thought alone should make any doctor aboard sick.

 

I came up with many responses to this, but I'll start it with a simple "No, this is not correct."

Before anesthesiology was the pretty, clean science we know today, doctors and surgeons used whatever was popular at the time to numb, disassociate, or render the patient unconscious, using everything from irritant herbs to distract the patient to good ol' brute force trauma. Due to the extreme pain patients experienced, it was not the routine procedure we would imagine today, but a last resort. However, this was due to extreme discomfort to the patient, and the amount of complications that could arise from preforming an operation before our pretty science, which, as you could imagine, was the lack of a sterile environment and insufficient scientific advances to keep the patient alive. It is not plausible that a patient would die of pain, but far more likely from the circumstances causing the pain. More common reactions to extreme pain during surgery would be shock and PTSD, however, the pain did not drive them "completely and utterly insane" as you stated.

Anesthesia awareness is an entirely different bowl of nuts with it's own set of complications, but is not relevant.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

What nursiesaid. Surgeries during the Civil War for example was a lot of "Bite onto this towel." if what little anesthesia they had available wasn't enough or available.

[Guest]

Still is like that today. Most people do not like being put under anesthetic.

[Filthyfrankster]

What nursiesaid. Surgeries during the Civil War for example was a lot of "Bite onto this towel." if what little anesthesia they had available wasn't enough or available.

 

Or better yet, downing a few shots of whiskey and biting down on something.

[Garnascus]

Ok, those are good points and I should have more explicitly stated what I had in mind. I think you could get away with removing objects from people and even bone repair but.... Internal organs surgery? Breaking own the chest cavity? I don't know about that.

[Zundy]

Ok, those are good points and I should have more explicitly stated what I had in mind. I think you could get away with removing objects from people and even bone repair but.... Internal organs surgery? Breaking own the chest cavity? I don't know about that.

 

This. Lets not forget that during the civil war no one was saying "take two shots of whisky whilst I saw open your rib cage, cut out your heart and replace it."

[Lady_of_Ravens]

So, it's already been established that surgery without anesthesia does hurt, but it only shows it to the victim. Isn't this suggestion sort of redundant?

Isn't it up to the victim to roleplay the pain if they aren't outright forcibly screaming? Just sayin'.

 

I've done 3 or 4 operations with no anesthesia (or at least nothing stronger than a tramadol), and the most I ever saw someone do was RPing gritting their teeth and stoically enduring the pain. Why? Because it's so the thing to play a badass manly man who can endure the unimaginable agony of having his rib cage sawed open and his liver wrapped in regenerative membrane.

I know some people can RP better than this, but like fear, pain is something a certain demographic seem to hate RPing. You might as well say people should RP pain in combat situations... they should, but they don't, and that's what code is for.

But there's another side to this, too, and that is that doing major surgery without proper anesthesia shouldn't be a good idea. Yeah, it may be survivable if they're on heavy painkillers or you dose the patient into unconsciousness with soporific, but it should still have penalties. Each step in the operation should cause pain damage (which would be negated by anesthesia), and have a chance of failing when performed on a conscious patient just like when doing ghetto surgery.

What's more, cutting someone's chest or skull open should come with a chance of stopping the patient's heart from the sheer, excruciating agony because yes, that's a real thing. I don't know from personal experience, but I'm told that bone pain is one of the worst forms of pain.

In other words, surgery without anesthetic shouldn't be anything but a last-resort if no other options are available, and afterward you shouldn't be able to just stand up and walk out of the OR.

[Killerhurtz]

I'm told that bone pain is one of the worst forms of pain.

 

Oh you were told right. Once I had to get a bone marrow extraction to get checked for leukemia, and I was crying and yelling and went borderline-unconscious because of the pain... despite local anesthetics. And that was just a curved needle taking a piece of bone out - I can't imagine the pain that would come with a complete severing of a bone.

[MagnificentMelkior]

I don't know about the heart stopping thing, that seems a little unlikely and ss13 tends to err on the side of high (absurdly so) constitutions, but treating it like ghetto surgery is a solid idea, mostly because I can see squirming or freaking out causing you to slip up. Instead of anesthesia, there should be an easier and more brutal method for when you don't care about the health or sanity of the patient: strapping them down so hard they can't move, which could be assumed to already be taking place with the surgery tables.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

I don't know about the heart stopping thing, that seems a little unlikely and ss13 tends to err on the side of high (absurdly so) constitutions, but treating it like ghetto surgery is a solid idea, mostly because I can see squirming or freaking out causing you to slip up. Instead of anesthesia, there should be an easier and more brutal method for when you don't care about the health or sanity of the patient: strapping them down so hard they can't move, which could be assumed to already be taking place with the surgery tables.

 

It doesn't matter how great your constitution is, you can still go into shock and die from sufficiently severe pain. Still, I'd save it for the bone-sawing procedures, and let the rest of the operation simply cause massive pain damage. The point here is to make it somewhat more realistic and horrifying, but not so dangerous as to be impossible.

Also, if the patient's heart stops... that's what the defib is for. XD

As for strapping patients down so they can't struggle (or get up)... oh yes please. Please please please please please. I would *teary eyes* be so happy if I could vivisect a living specimen while they're awake and screaming at the top of their lungs.

[Guest]

I don't know about the heart stopping thing, that seems a little unlikely and ss13 tends to err on the side of high (absurdly so) constitutions, but treating it like ghetto surgery is a solid idea, mostly because I can see squirming or freaking out causing you to slip up. Instead of anesthesia, there should be an easier and more brutal method for when you don't care about the health or sanity of the patient: strapping them down so hard they can't move, which could be assumed to already be taking place with the surgery tables.

 

Another justification as to why we need character stats.

[LetzShake]

Another example of character stats being a band aid on bad RP. But yes, it used to be that surgery caused screaming I think. Even sometimes if they were unconscious they would scream when you saw through the ribs. I think it's important that you be able to immediately tell that someone is getting surgery without anesthetic from outside.I have actually had times where I used sleep toxin rather than the gas and they woke up in the middle of surgery and did not react. I don't know if they didn't realize what was happening or just didn't feel like actually playing it out. Causing a failure chance for the surgery would be a good idea a patient getting surgery without anesthetic is likely to squirm

Edited December 8, 2015 by Guest

[Lady_of_Ravens]

Agreed: stats aren't really needed here.

As for screaming... currently, surgery will cause the patient to scream if you botch a step (either from moving, dropping the tool, doing ghetto surgery, or whatever). But, really, if they're under full anesthesia they shouldn't be screaming at all. It's when they're not anesthetized that the screaming should begin (and, if no painkillers are involved, should be more or less continuous).

[Guest]

Nah, it wouldn't help, like at all. People would cry more about their constitution being horridly low rather than actually crying about how awful the pain is.

The major issue is that it's the choice of the patient to roleplay the intense pain they have from injuries, but not every player knows what it's actually like to have bone surgery.

Rather than yelling at them that they're RPing wrong, encourage them to try different avenues. Give examples, etc.

[Skull132]

I don't think forcing screaming would be wise. Specially if, say, the person is roleplaying biting onto something? Something I've seen done IC at least twice.

Going under the knife in an awake state already gives the player enough information to roleplay appropriately. I think that the specifics of how they enact on it should be left up to them. Whether they just scream, wail, and cry, or perhaps they'll simply pass out - those specifics should be up to da player to play out according to their character. If they don't: adminhelps are a thing and badRP, which ignoring such huge amounts of pain definitely is, is punishable. As simple as that.

[Lady_of_Ravens]

Whether or not it makes someone scream isn't the point so much as whether or not it has actual in-game effects appropriate to the level of pain inflicted.

[Conservatron]

I don't think forcing screaming would be wise. Specially if, say, the person is roleplaying biting onto something? Something I've seen done IC at least twice.

Going under the knife in an awake state already gives the player enough information to roleplay appropriately. I think that the specifics of how they enact on it should be left up to them. Whether they just scream, wail, and cry, or perhaps they'll simply pass out - those specifics should be up to da player to play out according to their character. If they don't: adminhelps are a thing and badRP, which ignoring such huge amounts of pain definitely is, is punishable. As simple as that.

tangent suggestion - adding a gag to the mouth slot to stop a person from screaming (or talking, except telepathically... skrell can do that right?)