Merge Virology And Pharmacist Into A New Title: Bio-Physician

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Hello! I stumbled into 2 lingering problems left-over from my old medical reforms, and I finally want to tackle them. These two problems are:

 

1) Virology is crippled by over-specialization and is not fun to play.

2) The two roles in the chemlab of Pharmacist and Chemist are so similar that making them distinct from a functional perspective would have to be very anal and lame and not fun.

So I had the thought that combining thechemist and virologist into the new Bio-Physician, while leaving the pharmacist alone, would solve both of these issues. This would give chemistry two jobs: Pharmacist and Bio-Physician.

 

Justification:

 

(lore) Over 400 years of bacteria becoming anti-biotic resistant, and diseases evolving at a rapid pace in general, pharmacists and virologists worked in tandem more and more over the years and became so intertwined that they were eventually merged into a new, advanced curriculum. Bio-Physician, merging Biochemistry and Physician.

 

(gameplay) Virologists' abilities to engineer new viruses is circumstantial and a dead end. Even if they create killer viruses or beneficial viruses, they can't release them. The only functional and consistent duties of a virologist is to cure outbreaks. These outbreaks are rare. We are struck with a plague of unstaffed virologists that no one misses until we need them. Having what is functionally a chemist who moonlights as a virologist gives players something to do at all times.

 

The Role Itself

Bio-Physician. Must be 30 years old.

M.D. and/or Ph.D. +2 years of residency and/or 4 years of work in related RnD.

They can do chemistry (hello) and general MD-lite duties similar to an Emergency Physician, sans any surgery at all. That means they can stabilize people, use sleepers, use cryo, and clone. They really shouldn't and they probably won't have time to, but the option is there if you need all hands on deck for mass casualties.

The pharmacist would remain the same. They will not have to worry about all this virology business and are happy just making alkysine, thanks.

I'll source the links below, but my brief research into the topic showed that there are already correlations between pharmacists and virology, and that some studies are suggesting making the two roles work closer together even now in 2018. Pharmacists are already meant to immunize people against infection, so expanding this to handle the research and curing of viruses is a natural end-state. Being a scifi setting we have a blank check to take this concept and run with it full steam.

 

Mapping Problems and Suggestions:

The virology lab is incredibly cumbersome, but there is also a lot of wasted space.

-One suggestion is to swap the chemlab and medical lobby. This would make the chemlab very large but comfortably fit chemlab as well as virology supplies. The lobby would be more cramped as consequence. The current virology lab would be slightly adjusted to be a general quarantine area.

-Alternatively, we could incorporate the medkit storage room as a mini-wing of the chemlab to store the virology equipment, and replace the little mini-office behind the main lobby with medkit storage. This is the least extensive way to do it and is my preferred method. If you just replace that table from the chemlab to the medkit room with an airlock and take away those other airlocks, you have a little sealed room for virology equipment where it wont fit in the main chemlab.The current virology lab would be slightly adjusted to be a general quarantine area.

-Alternatively, just give access to the new role to the virology lab. This is the boring but easy option.

Sources to justify merging of roles from a 'realism' perspective:

https://www.thebalance.com/pharmacist-526052 - peppered references to immunizations and vaccinations.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577178/ - a guy arguing we need to better synergise virology and pharcology duties.

Edited February 20, 2019 by Marlon Phoenix

[Loow]

Hey there. Loow here.

I like aspects of this proposal, and I think we should seriously consider it.

Giving virologists the chance to work with Chemistry would, in my mind, make the job seem more viable and friendly to at least some players. (If you're still learning virology, at least you have your familiarity with Chemistry to fall back on most rounds.) I also feel i would personally enjoy playing this. Chemistry has work it can choose to do every round, and this would add virology to the list of potential skills to master while still doing a useful job. (That is to say that virology is mostly useless unless there is an outbreak, but adding the option to work chemistry/medical-light would guarantee you have at least something you can contribute with.)

I, personally, could believe the explanation that diseases sprout up super quickly, making the need for this job plain to see. We need someone on-staff who can respond to the sudden viruses which spontaneously mutate on our station. This would also explain why we suddenly get dramatic diseases during rounds.

On switching the chem lab and lobby:

It's be a rough change to get used to, but I think it's doable. There'd be less lobby-space, but it would mean an easy-to-access quarantine area immediately next to the entrance. This might be better than running the sick through the entirety of medical as quickly as possible.

Of course, I can also understand just making a new role with access to both chemistry and virology.

Would this also be considered a Research/Science position? I may be pushing my luck there.

I hope this topic starts a nice discussion.

[SeniorScore]

More versatility to a rather niche profession can definitely be a plus, and as Loow stated, could definitely be used to help new players trying to learn it have something they know they can do (if they do) while they're trying to grasp new shit.

[BurgerBB]

A virology-chemist merge is a welcome change and would be even better with a complete mapping overhaul of medical.

 

 

There is a lot of wasted space in medical that can be converted into a better area. While the current map layout is pretty efficient, there are some minor tweaks that could be made to improve the flow of recovery, especially during emergencies.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

The maintenence area is not 'wasted space'. It is meant to be a large, winding, maze-like area for stealth and the like, while giving the feel of a large, sprawling station with a lot of waste. A total remap of medical is a bit above and beyond the point of this suggestion since there is still space that can be utilized in what is already established. At least in the 3 ways I found while examining the map.

[BurgerBB]

The maintenence area is not 'wasted space'. It is meant to be a large, winding, maze-like area for stealth and the like, while giving the feel of a large, sprawling station with a lot of waste. A total remap of medical is a bit above and beyond the point of this suggestion since there is still space that can be utilized in what is already established. At least in the 3 ways I found while examining the map.

 

Unless there is a rework of how viruses are processed and cured, chemistry is going to have a bit of a difficult time curing viruses unless you propose on keeping that oversized virology sublevel or moving chemistry to the sublevel.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I used to play virology for a bit before I stopped due to it being really, really boring. The actual process of curing random outbreaks is rather straightforward. The biggest hurdle to a smaller lab is finding where to store all of your paperwork, samples, etc. There are 6 machines that you need in the virology lab. The lab itself, with all of its equipment and not counting the hallway to the pens, is 6x5 in size if you count floor tile within walls as the 'space'. The chemistry lab is actually 6x7. The lobby is 6x10. The medkit storage area is 4x4. That is a VERY compact location. That is why I suggested making the current chemlab into a lobby and giving the lobby space to a new chemlab and virology merge.

[LordFowl]

Further input on the topic of "wasted space". The map is not designed to be efficient. Efficiency is bad for gameplay (see atmos). That said, the map is also designed to be able to be relatively easily expanded in an outward direction.

[Scheveningen]

A big problem at the moment is the amount of space between point A and point B, point A being virology and point B being chemistry. Would any of the map layout change with this suggestion? It's difficult to justify going down to virology when half of your responsibility mostly involves stocking chemistry for the majority of the round, and likewise difficult to justify doing virology research at the start of the round when you could be preparing medicine when the crew will most certainly need it.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Tishinastalker, a chemist main, brought up the suggestion that the chemlab titles should be Pharmacist and Bio-Physician, rather than Chemist and Bio-physician. I think this could be a good alternate job titles for the pharmacy since it is a medical location, and research-focused 'chemist' duties could simply be absorbed by the 'Scientist' and other RnD lab roles? Nothing would functionally change but the mindset in which the role is played.

[MO_oNyMan]

I really like the idea of making a merge of virology ad chemistry alt-title. Chemists are not too busy to handle some additional chores and virology would benefit from being allowed to actually do something. The only problem with replacing virologist with bio-physician is that gap between the chemistry and viro. Some tweak to adress that would be nice. I think a new medbay map is being developed right now, adress mappers (@Juani) about that

Overall +1

[Brutishcrab51]

Why not? Jackboot and the others have said why this 'ought to happen. The map has space to work with already, and Medical does suffer from over-specializations. This'd be something acceptable, and might encourage more Virology play, while allowing players to take part in other aspects of Medical.

+1.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Bump.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Bump.

[Azande]

Sorry, Bio-Physician sounds like a really dumb title. Bio stands for biology, which comes from a Latin word for life, and physician comes from a word meaning of nature.

Life coming from nature is a dionae name, not a job title.

Microbiological Chemist

Biochemist

Or any other title aside from 'Bio-Physician' PLEASE.

+1 otherwise

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Sorry, Bio-Physician sounds like a really dumb title. Bio stands for biology, which comes from a Latin word for life, and physician comes from a word meaning of nature.

Life coming from nature is a dionae name, not a job title.

Microbiological Chemist

Biochemist

Or any other title aside from 'Bio-Physician' PLEASE.

+1 otherwise

You're dumb. Biophysician opened up the assumption that you can assume physician duties similar to the Emergency Medical Physician sans surgery. I guess biochemist would be fine. The name is secondary to the intent.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I made my first PR for this.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/4549

[Bygonehero]

I don't like merging the duties and expectations of a role into one. You're making desperate fields come together.instead, I feel merging Virology into a science/medical role is more sound, and infinitely less power creep than taking two separate jobs and making up some bullcrap about them coming together.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Everything we have is bull crap because this is a fictional game. Our worry should be what could be, and not what is.

http://anderson.chem.ox.ac.uk/virchem.html

There is already a relationship between virology and chemistry. This was not a relationship pulled out of my butt. Biochemists look to manage viruses using their chemistry knowledge. Actual virology engineering viruses is a dead end on Aurora unless you are an antag. Virologist is a niche of a niche since it exists exclusively to counteract a single random event. Your alternate suggestion is incredibly vague. What do you want a virologist to do all round? This does not change the mechanics or goal of either job, and instead ensures they always have something to do. the pharmacist title is still going to be there.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Marlon Phoenix

[BurgerBB]

This is a good idea, honestly. Virology is a barely occupied roll and is honestly too specific for its own good. it's kind of like having surgeon as a separate roll that has different access from a regular doctor.

[LordFowl]

This is a good idea, honestly. Virology is a barely occupied roll and is honestly too specific for its own good. it's kind of like having surgeon as a separate roll that has different access from a regular doctor.

 

Virologist's and surgeons are identical in the sense that they are both just alternate titles to doctor.

[Bygonehero]

Everything we have is bull crap because this is a fictional game. Our worry should be what could be, and not what is.

http://anderson.chem.ox.ac.uk/virchem.html

There is already a relationship between virology and chemistry. This was not a relationship pulled out of my butt. Biochemists look to manage viruses using their chemistry knowledge. Actual virology engineering viruses is a dead end on Aurora unless you are an antag. Virologist is a niche of a niche since it exists exclusively to counteract a single random event. Your alternate suggestion is incredibly vague. What do you want a virologist to do all round? This does not change the mechanics or goal of either job, and instead ensures they always have something to do. the pharmacist title is still going to be there.

 

My suggestion was to give Virology the same access type as genetics did on the Exodus, the middle ground between Research and Medical, where a part of Virology is medical based, but another part of its base for research this would mean that actually developing new viruses is treated under the protections of Research directives, and you would not be beholden to just the CMO viewpoints. The research and medical sublevels could easily be linked together. As for your relation, its false as one could argue that virtually everything in existence is chemistry. I'm not talking about the fact that chemistry plays a role in viruses and their incubation, no I'm talking about the staggeringly different fields of chemistry and virology.

[Faris]

I'm fine with this being given a test run.

[LordFowl]

Virologist is a non-role. Merging them with chemist is functionally equivalent to deleting the virologist, consider this:

The only valuable part of virology is the ability to cure viruses. The mechanics for creating viruses are incredibly shallow, and the system itself is several years out of date. Instead of hamfistedly merging the two roles I would alternatively propose removing virologist entirely. The sublevel becomes focused on quarantine and the curing process becomes more streamlined so regular medical staff can accomplish it. Alternatively the spirit of this suggestion is pursued in that the chemist becomes responsible for curing viruses as a side-job, through the creation of immunization chemicals that Burger is working on, although more in-depth mechanics would probably be necessary as they become the focus instead of an option.

In a sense, the only distinction between what is proposed and the original suggestion is we get rid of virus creation entirely and we don’t use the dumb BioChemist title, with the option of also focusing on immunizations instead of just reactive cures.

[TishinaStalker]

I just realized I never posted a suggestion I gave Jackboot on this that he told me I should post.

I think if this goes through, then Chemist as a title should be moved to Science to better emphasize why there's chem dispensers there since a Chemist is a research job. That way, it should be Pharmacist and Bio-Physician or Bio-Chemist or whatever is decided with Pharmacist being the standard one since we're talking about the Medical department.