Guide to Medicine

Medicine is the province of the SEV Torch's dedicated medical professionals, and is mostly something that they try to do while avoiding the variety of hapless uneducated schmucks that insist on clogging up the infirmary. Playing a Medical job in Space Station 13 is, in theory, about being a noble physician concerned with the life and health of all other members of the crew. In practice, it means cleaning up after the messes that the other departments make for themselves, patching up the idiots so that they can go out and hurt themselves all over again, and doing your best to ignore non-Medical crew who think that they know your job better than you do.

The Basics

The Brain

Everything in your body revolves around the brain. So long as your brain isn't dead, you're not dead. Everything else is just there to keep the brain alive, and the severity of any given injury is a direct measure of how much of a threat it poses to the brain.

Your brain - and, similarly, the brains of your patients - start out with an integrity of 100%. Certain types of effects can cause your brain's integrity to lower. When it hits 0%, you are braindead - and there's no coming back from that.

The things that pose the biggest threat to your brain, in approximate order of how common they are on board this ship, are:

1. Lack of oxygen flow.
2. Direct physical harm to the brain.
3. Toxins in the bloodstream.

Lack of oxygen can be caused by many things - exposure to vacuum, being poisoned with Lexorin, and so on. The most common cause of it, though, is Blood Loss.

Alternately, even if you're getting sufficient blood to your brain, and even if it's chock-full of delicious oxygen, toxins in your blood will still eat through your neurons pretty quickly. Your first line of defense against this is your liver, with your kidneys playing backup, but you'll still need to clear toxins out of your blood, through whatever means, as fast as possible. See Toxins below for more information.

And, finally, somebody shooting you in the brain will obviously not be a good thing for your brain integrity, either. Protect your noggin, or end up as a pink splatter on the walls.

Blood Loss

Blood Oxygenation

Blood loss, insufficient oxygenation of the blood, and lack of circulation are among the most common threats to patients' brains aboard the Torch.

Mechanically, what ultimately matters is your level of blood oxygenation. This is a numerical value, ranging from 0% to 100%, determined by:

• Blood volume: Restore blood with IV drips.
• Access to oxygen: Make sure they have breathable air (check if their internals are empty!). Dexalin (Plus) is also very helpful.
• Lungs and heart: A damaged heart is especially dangerous. Surgery, Cryotubes, and Peridaxon all directly heal organs.

Below 85% blood oxygenation your brain will start taking damage and it'll take damage faster and faster as oxygen becomes less and less available. Below 30% blood oxygenation, the brain no longer has enough oxygen to sustain itself and the lack of blood oxygenation will eventually become lethal. On the flip side, this means your patient can survive as long as they stay at or above 30% blood oxygenation (assuming there aren't any other underlying issues) – so be sure to prioritize keeping them above the survival threshold.

Pulse

If your blood oxygenation drops, your pulse rate will increase to compensate for it.

• Above 150 BPM, it will start damaging your heart.
• Above 250 BPM, the patient can and will enter cardiac arrest.

To lower the pulse, use Inaprovaline and/or Paracetamol/Tramadol/Oxycodone to alleviate pain.

Blood Flow

If your heart doesn't beat, there is no blood flow. Blood flow is also reduced if heart is damaged, and can lead to low oxygenation even with full oxygen and blood volume.

Cardiac Arrest

Sometimes the heart just can't take it anymore and stops. Being in extreme pain will also skyrocket your pulse and can cause the heart to stop. This is indicated by a flatline on your medHUD.

If someone is in cardiac arrest, they are priority number one.

• If you are ever in doubt what to do, put the patient into a stasis bag. You can scan them with your health analyzer and inject them with a syringe even if the bag is closed.
• First, make sure the heart won't stop again. Was it caused by pain? Administer painkillers, then use a defibrillator.
• It could've been caused by low blood volume – hypovolemic shock. Get some blood into them with IV drips and restart the heart with a defibrillator or CPR.
• Was it caused by severe heart damage? You can see this if their blood oxygenation is dangerously low. Put them into a stasis bag or cryo tube, tell the Physician the patient needs instant surgery, then bring them in.
• It could've been caused by a lack of oxygen sending the heart into an abnormal rhythm. Restart the heart with defibrillator or CPR. If they have air, that's it. Otherwise, administer Inaprovaline to stabilize their pulse.
• If you are a civilian, the patient is in surgery, or you just can't get a defibrillator, administer CPR.

Toxins

Poison in your blood is exceptionally bad news. As long as it's there, it will inflict continuously-stacking damage on your organs, brain included.

Toxins are filtered out by your liver. Once it fails, the kidney is next and your body is without any kind of a protection. All your other organs will shut down.

In case of toxins:

• Use dialysis to remove the toxins.
• Administer Dylovene. It removes toxins and slightly heals the liver.
• If it is caused by radiation, use Hyronalin/Arithrazine.
• Fix liver and kidneys with surgery, Peridaxon, or cryotubes.

Some toxins, such as cyanide, are even more dangerous, as they are targeted towards specific organs and bypass the liver's protection. These can go right for the brain if left untreated and are enormously lethal. Be ready to react quickly if you want to have any hope of saving a patient from these super-poisons.

Diagnostics

There are a variety of handy tools available to medical personnel. Learning what information can be gathered from each, and what you most need to know, is key to quickly and accurately diagnosing patients.

Your Eyes

Example of manual inspection.

This is something that a surprising number of players, even experienced ones, tend to forget. Simply looking at a patient by Shift + Clicking on them can tell you a surprising amount about their condition, such as:

• Any embedded objects such as shrapnel or bullets. They don't come up on your handheld analyzer.
• Bleeding and/or visible wounds.
• Missing body parts.
• Dislocated body parts.

Some more information, such as broken bones, can be gathered by touch. Target a part of their body, grab (using grab intent) it and click on them with the help intent to inspect that piece. This will provide you with a variety of information tidbits about that specific limb's condition.

Health Analyzer

Sample health analyzer report.

The health analyzer is the medic's best friend. Clicking on a patient with this in hand will give you a short readout of their condition. At least Basic Medicine Skill is recommended to get full information from it.

From top to bottom, the results are:

1. Brain Activity: Ranges from normal to fading (not counting "None", which indicates brain death). A rough measure of the brain's integrity levels.
2. Pulse Rate: The current heart rate. Anything above roughly 120 bpm indicates stress and pain; 250 bpm or higher indicates that the patient's heart is close to failing.
3. Blood Pressure: The norm for most patients (READ: healthy humans, not cyborgs or IPCs) will be roughly 120/80. Anything below that generally indicates blood loss. Also on this line is the patient's blood oxygenation. See above for more information. Anything below 100% indicates either blood loss, lung failure, or heart damage.
4. Body Temperature: Usually about 38C or 98F (again, for healthy humans). Anything substantially higher or lower indicates some sort of problem or change, an infection, or simply having prosthetics.
5. Radiation Levels: A measure of how many points of radiation the patient has accumulated. Anything other than "No radiation detected." should be instantly fixed.
6. Specific Limb Damage: This is where you get a readout of what obvious external injuries, such as burns and cuts, the patient has. You won't see exact numbers here but you are given enough clues. Red damage is Brute, orange is Burn. Anything that is marked with [bleeding] should be bandaged as soon as possible. Damage listed as "irreparable" is beyond your ability to treat. These limbs will need to be amputated and replaced.
7. Reagent Scan: The scanner can also tell you how many units of medication the patient has in their bloodstream, as well as any medications they may have swallowed. It will also let you know if there are non-medical things circulating in the patient's system, though it can't identify them.
8. Fractures, Internal Bleeding, and Systemic Organ Failure: The hand scanner will let you know if the patient has any of these severe conditions, though it won't be able to tell you details like which organs have failed or which arteries are bleeding. If you see any of these, take the patient to the Advanced Body Scanner immediately to see how bad things really are.

Body Scanner

The Body Scanner is a more heavy-duty version of your handheld health analyzer. Patients have to be loaded into it by hand (drag and drop or use grab intent). Once someone is inside, click on the console next to it and press "(Re)scan Occupant". You can use this to identify failing or damaged organs, broken bones, severed arteries, illicit implants, genetic degradation, or anything else that the handheld scanner can't identify on its own.

This device requires higher Medicine Skill to function correctly than the health analyzer, giving full information only at Experienced level.

You can also push the scan to the displays located above the surgery tables in the operating theatres, or print out a piece of paper with the scan results on it and bring it to the surgeon so they can refer to it when needed.

The Medical HUD

Medical as a division has access to special HUD glasses which will tell you, at a glance, a few vital things about a patient.

A straight flatline (without a skull icon) means cardiac arrest.

The Stethoscope and Penlight

These are two medical diagnostic tools with extremely niche applications, but they can be handy in identifying odd or elusive conditions. You'll still probably never use them.

• Stethoscope: Can be worn on your jumpsuit as an attached accessory. When you need to use it, hold it in your hand, target your patient's chest, and click on them with help intent. This will allow you to identify any issues with the heart or lungs.
• Penlight: Can be stored in your medical belt or on your ear. When needed, click on it in your hand to turn on the light, target your patient's eyes, and click on them with help intent. This will allow you to monitor the reaction time of their pupils, which, if slower than usual, can indicate brain damage, intoxication via alcohol or drugs or genetic degradation.

Triage, Retrieval, and Critical Patients

Triage is the art of quickly diagnosing multiple patients and prioritizing care towards those with the most pressing need. Basically, when you have multiple patients, look over each of them as quickly as you can and figure out which of them, if any, need treatment right the hell now, and focus care on them. This is a vital skill during emergency situations, but even with only one or two patients to look at, being able to determine within a few seconds whether or not their condition is particularly serious is a vital skill, particularly for Medical Technician players, who will often be called upon to exercise this skill in the field while retrieving patients for transport to the Infirmary.

This relies, obviously, on your ability to quickly and accurately diagnose patients, so familiarize yourself with the diagnostic tools covered above and learn how to read them. Once you know how to identify what is wrong with each patient, it becomes a matter of prioritizing.Any patient undergoing cardiac arrest, suffering from internal bleeding, with ruptured lungs, or experiencing organ failure needs immediate treatment. Whether or not any of these things are true, though, the basic idea behind triage is this:

1. Examine each potential patient as quickly as possible, and form a diagnosis of each.
2. Sort each patient from most critical to least critical.
3. Stabilize the most critical patients, if possible, and send them to the more specialized Physicians, if available, for complete treatment.
4. Work your way down the list, stabilizing and directing each patient to the appropriate Physician, until no patients remain.

When working as a Medical Technician in the field, this will include the additional step of retrieving the patients for transport to the Infirmary. When dealing with injured patients in the field, after performing triage and selecting your priority cases:

1. Remove yourself and the patient from the source of the injury, whether it be a space carp, phoron-saturated clothing, or a murderous traitor. Adding yourself to the list of casualties won't help anyone. Putting them in a rescue bag will protect them against hostile atmosphere.
2. Stabilize the patient to the best of your ability before transporting them. Failing to do this may result in patient death during transport. Administering Inaprovaline, Tramadol and Dexalin Plus, bandaging bleeding wounds, attaching an auto-compressor, and so on are all helpful in this regard; prioritize stopping any external bleeding, preserving oxygen flow to the brain, and preventing the onset of shock. If the patient requires surgery, wait until after the surgery to administer Bicaridine or Tricordrazine. These will heal the incisions the surgeon makes on the patient, interrupting surgery.
3. Use a roller bed to transport them to Medbay. If no roller beds are available, grab them using grab intent and move. Warning: Remember, patient's condition will will worsen massively from being dragged (ctrl+click) with open wounds!

Color	Description	In-game definition	Real world treatment	Suggested in-game treatment
Black	Patient is dead	Patient is braindead. No brain activity.	Remove to prevent infections	Ignore until all live patients dealt with, then take to morgue.
Red	Patient is seriously injured and in danger of dying, or just flatlined recently	Critical condition (asystole, heart stopped) Very low blood counts Quickly dropping vitals Organ damage to vital organs (brain/heart/lungs)	Immediate treatment	Treat their condition as quickly as possible. If unable to treat immediately (OR busy, no vaccine), put them in a stasis bag until they can be helped. Stabilize all critical patients before proceeding with in-depth treatment, restart their heart with Defibrillator as soon as they can sustain the heartbeat.
Yellow	Patient is injured, but not in immediately life-threatening danger	Bone fractures Minor organ damage Bleeding or infected (early stage) wounds	Delayed treatment	Treat as soon as all red triage patients are stabilized.
Green	Patient has light or no injuries, with no bleeding.	Non-life-threatening injuries, if any; minor cuts and scrapes.	Minimal/No treatment	Ignore until the last of the yellow triage patients have been taken care of.

Conditions and Symptoms

Now that you are familiar with the methods and methodology of making a diagnosis, it's time to take a look at the actual conditions that you will have to diagnose. You can use the table below to find a list of symptoms, conditions, and how to treat them.

List of Medical Conditions and Symptoms
Condition	Danger	Symptoms and Diagnosis	Causes	Treatment
Bleeding and Low Blood Count	Danger: Low - Critical (Depending on severity)	Shows up on Health Analyzer. Visibly bleeding wounds. Low blood pressure or circulation. Elevated pulse. Patient feeling woozy, paleness of skin. Drops of blood, or blood puddles near patients. Brain damage while having air and working lungs.	Untreated external injuries, arterial bleeding, or donating too much blood. Depending on severity, can cause brain damage, cardiac arrest, and eventual death.	Locate bleeding injuries, either by examining the person or with a Health Analyzer. If no external bleeding injuries are visible, check for damage to the heart or arterial bleeding. To stop external bleeding, bandage all wounds you find with gauze or an advanced trauma kit. Arterial bleeding and heart damage need to be treated surgically. Bicaridine will close external cuts, eventually stopping any external bleeding. If the patient's blood circulation is below approximately 85%, administer a blood transfusion. After all bleeding has been treated, administer further blood transfusions or iron pills and wait for blood level to normalize.
Arterial Bleeding	High	Shows up on Health Analyzer. Symptoms of low blood volume without visible bleeding. Also referred to as "Internal bleeding" or "IB".	Caused by massive brute damage rupturing a vein or artery within the body.	If this condition is encountered, immediately attempt to stabilize the patient by stopping any external bleeding and treating other superficial injuries. A blood transfusion will be necessary in most cases. Monitor blood levels of the patient, transfusing blood before, during, and after surgery if needed. Stasis bags will keep the patient stable during transport and the wait for surgical treatment if blood loss is too severe. Move patient to an advanced medical scanner to find the exact location of injury. Pressure can be applied to the body part with the ruptured artery in order to slow (but not stop) the blood loss. In patient's extremities, splints can be used to apply pressure. Move patient to OR and mend the rupture.
Organ Failure	Critical	Shows up on Health Analyzer if more than one organ is damaged. Note that this does not include damage to the brain or eyes; this is covered elsewhere. Continuous vomiting or dry-heaving, if the liver and kidneys are failing. Low blood circulation despite lack of bleeding, if the heart is failing. Gasping for air and continuous brain damage from suffocation, if the lungs are failing. Recurring pains in the chest or groin. Continuous creation of toxins in the bloodstream.	Caused by toxins in the blood, radiation poisoning, or excessive damage to specific zones of the body.	THIS IS A HIGHLY DANGEROUS CONDITION, AND SHOULD BE TREATED IMMEDIATELY! If this condition is encountered, immediately attempt to stabilize the patient by any means necessary. Administer chemicals as necessary – Dylovene is particularly important if the cause of the organ failure was poisoning. Organ failure is one of the most lethal conditions in the game, as it self-perpetuates; injured organs will worsen quickly if not treated immediately, becoming less and less functional as their condition degrades. Once dead or necrotic, they will also continuously output toxins into the bloodstream, causing other organs to rapidly fail as well. Get the patient into the advanced medical scanner as quickly as possible and determine which organs are failing and how severe their condition is. If the organs are not yet necrotic, cryotubes or injected Peridaxon and Dylovene can cure the condition (depending on the organ), albeit slowly. If the organs have already become necrotic, surgical replacement is the only solution, and must be done as quickly as possible. Place the patient in a stasis bag to keep them stable during transport and the wait for surgical treatment.
Heart Damage	Moderate - Critical (Depending on severity)	Symptoms of low blood count with actual blood levels being normal.	Lower blood oxygen levels due to blood not being pumped properly by damaged heart. Damage can be caused by severe blunt trauma, stab wounds or fractured ribs.	Blood transfusion if patient has low blood levels too. Move patient and IV to OR and mend the damage.
Blood Rejection	Low - Moderate	Toxin damage without foreign chemicals in bloodstream. Unexplained suffocation damage. Patient recently received blood transfusion.	Transfusion of incompatible blood type to the patient.	In case it's not obvious, STOP PUMPING THAT BLOOD IN THEM. Administer Dylovene until symptoms stop manifesting.
Lung Damage	High	Patient coughs up blood. Patient gasping for air in breathable environment.	Exposure to low or high pressure environments without proper internals set.	While waiting for treatment, administer Dexalin Plus or put the person on an oxygen tank with the pressure turned up. This will allow them to get enough oxygen while they wait for treatment. Mend lung rupture surgically. If no surgeon is available or you have a simple ruptured lung with no bone fractures, administer Peridaxon, keep Dexalin Plus in the patient's system, and wait for the lung to heal. If your patient still has broken bones, the lung can rupture again, and the patient must be kept still to prevent this while you wait for a surgeon.
Bone Fractures	Low	Shows up on Health Analyzer. Patient screaming in pain, dropping held items, and falling over. Facial deformities (showing up as Unknown) are often coupled with skull fractures.	Severe brute damage to a specific body part.	Painkillers will numb the pain while patient is waiting for surgery. In case of skull or rib fractures, do not let patient move around, since bone shards can damage internal organs. Use advanced body scanner to locate fracture locations. Treat brute damage on broken body part with either gauze or Bicaridine. Operate on the fracture. Splints can be used to return some function to the damaged limbs, if treatment is unavailable. Patients with leg and foot fractures can be issued a wheelchair and painkillers. Patients with skull, rib, and pelvic fractures must stay on bed rest, as walking has risk of internal organ injury.
Dismemberment	Moderate	MISSING. LIMBS. No, seriously, the limb is missing upon visual examination.	Common causes are explosions, high-power projectiles, rogue surgeons, sword fights.	Stop bleeding by applying trauma kits. Locations with bleeding will show up on the Health Analyzer. Administer painkillers; patient is in a world of pain. Order prosthesis, (cyborg limb), from Robotics lab. Graft it to the stump.
Embedded Objects	Low	Shows up on Health Analyzer. Visible embedded objects sticking out of patient. Reports of pain when moving. Embedded object shows up when scanning the patient.	High-velocity collisions with shrapnel, ballistic munitions and sharp implements. Implants. These may or may not be dangerous, depending on their nature. Parasitic infestation (alien or cortical borer). Your doctor may or may not know of the existence of these creatures, but they can probably guess they are not supposed to be inside the patient. Patient ate or was fed a monkey cube.	Immobilize patient. User a roller bed or grab and carry the patient for transportation. Do not attempt to remove embedded objects by hand as it may cause arterial bleeding. Move patient to an advanced body scanner and locate the embedded object. Surgically remove the embedded object.
Bacterial Infection	Low	Shows up on Health Analyzer. Toxin damage without foreign chemicals in bloodstream. Visible inflamed wounds. Damage to internal organs without external wounds. High body temperature.	Untreated severe open wounds and burns. Surgery performed without proper sterile technique.	Locate infected wound by examining patient. Treat infected area with ointment. Administer 5 units of Spaceacillin to stop the infection from worsening. If left untreated, the infection will worsen. Moving the patient to cryogenics will also stop progression of the infection. Administer Dylovene until symptoms stop manifesting. Keep Spaceacillin in the patient's system and monitor their body temperature until it normalizes. Check for organ damage once the patient has recovered.
Appendicitis	Low - Moderate (Depending on stage)	Shows up on Health Analyzer. Toxin damage without foreign chemicals in bloodstream. Patient experiences abdominal pains. Uncontrollable vomiting. Coughing.	Sepsis caused by inflamed appendix.	LETHAL IF LEFT UNTREATED. Confirm that it is indeed appendicitis with health analyzer. Remove inflamed appendix in surgery. Treat toxin damage.
Intoxication	Low	Slurring, confused movement. Hallucinations. Hallucination damage. Uncontrollable drooling, twitching. Possible toxin damage, or direct damage to liver.	Variety of substances, ranging from alcohol to illicit drugs.	Treatment depends on substance. Alcohol: Let them sleep it off. In case of emergency administer Ethylredoxrazine or dialysis in a sleeper. Treat toxin damage. Check for liver damage. Hallucinogens: Sedate patient to prevent him from hurting himself and healing hallucinatory damage. Administer 30 units of Dylovene and 1 unit of Synaptizine. Synaptizine is poisonous and must always be combined with Dylovene.
Radiation Sickness	Moderate - High	Patient is feeling weak, passes out. Steady increasing toxic damage that returns when treated. Hair loss. Radiation level is visible on the handheld and full-body scanners.	Patient has been exposed to experimental equipment, radioactive substances or objects, or the engine. The Supermatter has gone critical. In this case, patients will also have hallucinations.	Administer Dylovene to help stave off the organ failure. Administer Hyronalin or Arithrazine if possible. Arithrazine causes mild brute and burn damage, which will heal on its own unless your patient has a cybernetic limb. Patient might have organ damage from radiation. Administer Peridaxon or operate. Patients with genetic damage should be treated in cryo tubes.
Genetic Defects	Low	Highly varied, and differ depending on defect. With often only one or two of the following appearing: Seizures, random swearing, non-drug-induced hallucinations.	DNA defects acquired from radiation exposure.	Ask a Laboratory Technician for Ryetalyn. One unit is enough. Treat other symptoms, (broken bones, toxin damage), as you would normally.
Brain Damage	Low - Critical (Depending on severity)	Shows up on Health Analyzer WILL CAUSE DEATH IF ALLOWED TO INCREASE Concussion, in minor cases. Headaches, impaired vision. Impaired motor ability, with both arms and legs.	Head trauma, some chemicals, diseases, low effective blood count, toxins, suffocation.	Fix the cause - refill blood, get them air. Very low damage can heal on its own with time. Administer Alkysine. This is only effective with high blood circulation. If that does not help, could be a brain hematoma, and operation is needed.
Facial Deformation	Negligible	Patient's face damaged beyond recognition. Patient's vocal cords distorted. Patient shows up as "Unknown" despite having an ID.	Blunt head trauma, acid exposure, high temperatures exposure.	Reconstruct face and vocal cords surgically.
Joint Dislocation	Negligible	Patient can't use a limb, but it's not necrotic. Patient's limb is bulging/crooked oddly.	Blunt trauma, certain high-level kung fu techniques.	Set the dislocated joint. Some painkillers would be nice, as it is quite painful procedure. It can be done with Undislocate Joint verb when standing next to the patient.
Deafness	Negligible	Patient is unable to hear speech. Patient was recently near sites of explosions.	Concussion, DNA defects	In case it was caused by concussion, it will pass with time. If it was caused by DNA defect, treat with Ryetalyn.
Impaired Vision	Negligible	Patient is unable to see far away objects, objects appear blurred. In severe cases, patient's pupils do not react to penlight.	Eye trauma, bright light, DNA defects	Treat genetic defects with Ryetalyn. In case of impaired vision, administer Imidazoline. In case of complete blindness, repairing the retinas of the eye will help.
Headache	Negligible	Headache	Minor brain damage. Eye damage. Blurry vision.	Administer Alkysine or Tramadol. Treat the underlying brain damage or eye damage.
Decapitation	Critical	Patient's head is detached from the body. There is no head attached to the patient's body.	Same as with missing limbs, with maybe more explosions.	If you only have a torso without the head, not much can be done (ethically). Help yourself to their organs and blood if other people need them and you don't care about pesky ethics. If you have a head, they're still dead for good, but there's more you can do. If their medical records request so, extract brain and give to the Roboticist for MMI-ification.
Organ Scarring	Negligible	Reported by Advanced Scanner Damage effects appear quickly for this organ	Surgical repair of a very damaged organ.	None, barring complete replacement. Isn't harmful on its own if organ is not going to get heavily damaged again.

Tools

Some of these tools require at least the Basic level of the Medicine Skill to use safely, or perform better at higher skill levels.

Basic Tools

These are the most basic implements available to you. While their uses are specific and will not cover all the patients that you have to deal with, they're widely applicable, and having them within easy reach is never a bad thing.

Tool	Icon	Purpose	Usage
Ointment		Speeding up healing of burns. Also can be used to treat infected wounds, or to prevent wounds from becoming infected to begin with.	Target damaged body part and click on patient.
Advanced Burn Kit		Speeds up the healing process of burns. Also treats infected wounds. It is more effective than Ointment.	Target damaged body part and click on patient.
Gauze		Speeding up healing of brute damage. Also stops external wounds from bleeding.	Target damaged body part and click on patient.
Advanced Trauma Kit		Increases the speed of healing for brute damage and stops external wounds from bleeding. It is more effective than Gauze.	Target damaged body part and click on patient.
Syringe		Load it with medicines and administer them to people (5 units per injection by default, max 15 units). Take blood samples.	Click on things/people to inject or draw. Click on a patient multiple times to inject more medication at once, up to 15u. Injecting or withdrawing from a bottle or beaker is five units per click by default, adjustable by right-clicking the syringe and selecting "set transfer amount". Clicking on a patient while in Draw mode will, after a short delay, take a blood sample. If either of characters moves during it, injection fails. To switch between draw/inject modes, click on the syringe in-hand, or use "Z" in hotkey mode.
Auto-Injector		A single-use 5-unit injector containing various medicines for use in emergencies.	Click on patient while holding the Injector. Injection is nearly instant.

Medicine

Medicines are the true lifeblood of Medical as a department. There are medications available for all but the most severe of injuries: medications that will stitch your flesh back together, or salve your burns, or supply oxygen to your brain, or repair damaged organs, or cleanse toxins from your system. All of them are incredibly useful, and with a proper supply of medication, Medical should be able to save practically anyone that they can reach prior to death, no matter how intense the injury.

Unfortunately, only a small number of medications come readily available in the Infirmary vending machines. Most of them have to be made by hand by the Pharmacist in the Chemistry Lab.

Some of the more important medications are:

• Inaprovaline: Go-to stabilization chemical. Has various effects, most important being slowing down rate at which brain takes damage from low oxygenation. Mixes with Dylovene to make Tricordrazine
• Dylovene: A general purpose anti-toxin that will cleanse various poisonous substances from the blood stream. Your go-to answer for toxins of any type. It also heals the liver very slightly, assuming that it isn't already dead. Mixes with Inaprovaline to make Tricordrazine.
• Bicaridine: Treats brute damage.
• Kelotane, Dermaline: All treat burn damage. Dermaline is just stronger Kelotane. Often bottled together for increased efficiency and labelled KeloDerm.
• Dexalin and Dexalin Plus: Will supply blood with oxygen, regardless of if lungs work or no. Incredibly useful for stabilizing patients whose lungs have failed, but still requires blood flow.
• Tramadol: Strong painkiller, useful to prevent pain shock in patients.
• Alkysine: Repairs brain damage if oxygenation is good (85%+). Causes intermittent blackouts and confusion in the patient.

IV Drip

Technically, these can be used to provide a slow, steady feed of any given chemical into a patient's bloodstream, but most of the time you'll just be using them to perform blood transfusions on patients who have lost a lot of blood.

• Hooking/unhooking patient: Click and drag the IV's sprite onto the patient.
• Loading chemicals: Click on an unloaded IV with the chemical container in hand.
• Unloading chemicals: Click on a loaded IV with an empty hand.
• Changing modes: To change modes between feeding chemicals into or extracting blood from the patient (for blood donations, usually), right click on the IV and use Toggle Mode option.
• Changing amount transferred: To amount of chemicals transferred per cycle, right click on the IV and use Set IV transfer amount option.
• Keep in mind that leaving the patient hooked up to an extracting IV for too long will result in major blood loss, which will result in brain damage.

You can also use the IV bags in similar way – they must be held in hand to continue working, and cannot extract blood.

Roller Bed

Also known as stretchers. Used to transport patients quickly and safely. Patients can be buckled or unbuckled from the bed as per usual for beds and chairs, but this bed can be pulled and pushed around while someone's lying on it. It can also be folded up for a Medical Technician to carry it around, if necessary.

It has an IV stand and can be used to give an IV drip. Transfer amount must be set on the bag itself.

It can also be used for makeshift surgery in a pinch.

• Buckling Patient: Drag the patient on top of the unfolded bed, click and drag from patient to bed.
• Unbuckling: Click on the bed.
• Folding: Click and drag roller bed sprite to your character.
• Unfolding: Click on the folded bed in your hand.
• Loading beaker: Click on the bed with a beaker.
• Removing beaker: Click on the bed without a buckled patient.
• Hooking/unhooking patient IV: Drag bed with a loaded beaker onto the patient.

Auto-Compressor

Also known as an auto-CPR machine. This device will try to keep blood pumping even if the heart has stopped or is too damaged to do its job. It won't restart the heart and is slightly less efficient than manual CPR, but it will help keep the patient alive.

To work, it must be put on the patient's suit inventory slot. You can click the patient with it in hand to quickly put it on.

It requires at least Basic Anatomy and Medicine skill to safely use. Otherwise, it can damage the ribcage.

Rescue Bag

Dark blue bags, similar to body bags. They have air tanks attached and will protect the patient inside from hazardous atmospheric conditions, providing air from the tank instead. Remember that tanks are finite and will run out in ~20 minutes.

You can see the pressure in the tank and in the bag by examining it. The interior pressure will be set to the tank's distribution pressure.

• Putting Patient In / Taking out: Same as a body bag, click to open or close.
• Folding: Click and drag the bag sprite to your character.
• Unfolding: Click on the folded bag in your hand.
• Loading air tank: Click on the bag (folded or unfolded) with a tank.
• Removing air tank: Click on the bag with a screwdriver.

Stasis

Some things - namely cryo cells, stasis bags, or just extreme cold apply 'stasis'. It's an effect that slows down your metabolism by some factor, in essence making you 'tick' only every so often instead of normal frequency. It can be extremely useful in medical to buy some time for patients who are bad off, but not the worst off, or when medical help is unavailable and you need more time to get to it.

It slows down processing of everything inside the patient – bleeding, chemicals (both good and bad), infections, any organ damage side effects.

Higher stasis factors (15x or more) will also make patient fall asleep eventually, and all of them will make them drowsy.

Stasis Bag

Stasis bags were removed from the normal equipment supply, they can still be made by science or bought from merchants.

The ultimate "oh shit" button in Medical. When a patient is critical and you absolutely cannot get them treatment in time, have them lie on the floor and click on this bag while it's in your hand and you're standing over them. Then click the bag to open it, click again to close, and voila – one stasis'd patient. This will slow down their metabolism until it's opened again. They start at 20x slowdown, and deteriorate with time, turning 25% worse every 5 minutes - 20x to 15x to 11x and so on until fully depleted in 40 minutes.

Patients in stasis bags can also be injected through the bag itself by clicking on the bag with a syringe in hand. This allows you to dose the patient with important medications like Inaprovaline prior to removing them.

This makes Stasis Bags incredibly useful for emergency retrievals and ensuring that patients have more time to get treatment. In a crisis situation, these things are worth their weight in gold. For example, if patient would have died in a minute, at maximum power stasis bag he would last 20 instead.

• Slows down metabolism (breathing, bleeding, chemicals in blood, etc.)
• No IC skills required (one of the few devices that are ICly as simple to use as OOCly)

Defibrillator

Your answer to all cases of cardiac arrest. It has to be worn on your back and requires both hands free in order to wield the paddles. Place it on your back slot, then click it to take the paddles in your hands. Click the patient with the paddles at the ready, in help intent, and aiming at the chest area in order to try and jump-start their heart.

Do note that this won't actually fix anything about the heart itself. If it's damaged, it'll stay damaged, and if the patient is out of blood, they'll still be out of blood. Unless you want their heart to fail again immediately, be sure to fix the issue that caused the cardiac arrest in the first place before resuscitating them.

• Used to restart a stopped heart.
• Uses a standard power cell that can be removed with a screwdriver and upgraded.

Other Equipment

• Medical Wardrobe - Contains different uniforms for different sections of Med-bay, as well as different colored surgical scrubs.
• Medical Belts - Can be loaded with medications and tools, such as syringes and health analyzers, for easy access.
• Medical Kits - There are many different kinds, each containing their respective type of emergency pouches. More can be ordered from cargo.
• Syringe Gun - Can be loaded with a single syringe that can be shot at a person from a distance.
• Prescription Glasses - For helping those who can't see good and wanna learn do other stuff good too. Also contains prescription meson glasses and sunglasses.
• Space Cleaner - Can be fired ahead three tiles to help clean up the inevitable mess that Med-bay becomes.
• Sterilizine - Essentially space cleaner, removes blood on surgery tables.
• Body Bags - Used for storing dead bodies in. Can be labeled with a pen.
• Sink - Use this to wash your dirty, dirty germ covered hands.
• Mass Spectrometer - Used for testing toxins in a patient's blood.
• Laser Scalpel - Made from science, makes surgery quicker by making the incision bloodless.
• Incision Management System - Made from science, makes surgery much quicker by automatically making an incision, clamping bleeders, and retracting it.

Machinery

In addition to the other, more portable tools available to the doctors of the Torch, there are a handful of less-mobile pieces of medical equipment in the Infirmary that may prove useful to you.

Cryo Cell

Used for supercooling both medication and patients. Usually, these will be loaded with Cryoxadone or Clonexadone, which are medications that must be extremely cold in order to have any effect. They are the controlled way of putting a patient into cold-induced stasis. At 80K temperature, the cryotube provides 20x stasis factor to most species. Note that this currently prevents most use of cryo cells for actual medical treatment, as patients barely tick while in cryo. Cryo cells are useful primarily as stasis tools. Keep in mind that unless the tube has Cryoxadone or Clonexadone loaded, the cold will damage the patient as normal – those chems are what prevents it.

One of more niche uses is to repair genetic damage, as Clonexadone is an easy fix for that sort of thing. Occasionally, enterprising Pharmacists might load up the cryotubes with more complex medicinal mixtures that might give them a wider use, but this is uncommon and should not be relied upon.

Cryo starts out warm and has to be set up, and is useless until it's cold and loaded with medicine. Since it's the patient's body temperature that determines whether Cryoxadone and Clonexadone work, you won't get very fast results until the cryo tube is cold enough to quickly freeze the patient. Remove their space suits, or they would not be able to be chilled enough for medicine to work.

Once a patient is inside the cryotube, click on it to open its control interface and monitor your patient's health.

Setting Up Cryo

1. Make sure the oxygen canister is connected to the cryo tubes. If it isn't (it should be, as it starts out connected), use a wrench on the O2 canister to secure it.
2. Take a nearby beaker filled with Cryoxadone and then click on an empty cryotube to load the beaker into the cell. Note that Clonexadone is exactly the same, but better, and should be used when possible. Get some from the Pharmacist. Faster still is a combination of Clonexadone and Cryoxadone. Some Pharmacists make their own custom mixes.
3. Set the freezer's Target gas temperature to approximately 80 degrees.
4. Set the freezer to On.

Using Cryo

1. If patient is wearing any suit that protects from cold (i.e. space suit), remove it.
2. Grab the patient.
3. Click on one of the cells to place the patient inside and set the Cryo status to On.
4. If patient is not healing, either the patient is not cool enough inside the chamber, the beaker within the chamber has run out of chemicals, or the medicinal mix in the cryotube is incapable of treating the patient's injuries.
5. Click on the cryo cell to check on your patient. When satisfied with their recovery, you can eject the patient by pressing the Eject Occupant button.
6. Remember to turn Cryo status to Off to save oxygen and chemicals.

Sleeper

Sleepers are general-purpose medicinal units that can be used to apply a variety of basic medications. Since these are basic medications, however, they are rarely used for this; rather, their primary purpose is to perform dialysis or engage their stomach pump functions, which can both be used to remove a variety of toxic or otherwise dangerous substances from a patient's body.

Once a patient is loaded into the sleeper, click on it to open the controls for the sleeper.

• Placing patient in: Click and drag the patient onto the sleeper.
• Getting patient out: Press the Eject Occupant button on the sleeper interface screen.
• Dialysis: Once the patient is inside, click 'Start Dialysis'. Dialysis filters out blood (watch for low blood counts causing brain damage), with the added bonus of pulling out any chemicals in the patient's bloodstream with it. This treatment should be used when you believe someone to be overdosing or to be poisoned. The beaker inside the sleeper will fill with the mixture of blood and filtered chemicals. To retrieve the beaker (potentially to let the Chemist examine the mixture and find out what the patient was poisoned with), press the Eject Beaker button on the sleeper's control screen.
• Stomach pump: Similar to dialysis, but for chemicals in the stomach, as dialysis won't get those.
• Stasis: Sleepers have some limited stasis capability, with 3x, 5x or 10x factors settable. Keep in mind that while in stasis, beneficial medicine is processed more slowly. Power usage will also increase dramatically at higher factors.

Sleeper Chemicals

• Inaprovaline - Slows bleeding, stabilizes heart rate, and slows down the rate of brain damage. Also acts as a weak painkiller.
• Paracetamol - A slightly stronger painkiller than Inaprovaline.
• Dylovene - Cleanses toxins from the blood. Also slightly heals damage to the liver.
• Dexalin - Supplies artificial oxygen to the brain.

When upgraded by science staff, Sleepers also contain:

• Kelotane - Heals burns, albeit slower than Dermaline.
• Hyronalin - Treats radiation poisoning.

Suit Sensors Monitoring Console

Located in the infirmary lobby, the suit sensors monitoring console is your advance warning system. It's really just a program available to most computers, but it's primarily used by Medical personnel and is very handy for locating patients in need.

The sensor console can give a readout of any crew member's pulse, blood oxygenation, body temperature, and location, so long as they enable their suit sensors. Be sure to remind them to do this, and keep one eye on the monitoring console at all times in order to catch injuries as they occur and more efficiently dispatch your Medical Technicians to where they need to be.

Procedures

Beyond simply using the tools available to you, there are a variety of medical procedures that you can perform on your patients in order to help heal them.

CPR

If a patient's heart has stopped, there's no blood flow going to the brain. This can quickly result in brain death, and obviously should be corrected as quickly as possible, as mentioned above. However, if, for some reason, immediate resuscitation is not possible, CPR is a good way to extend a patient's life. Every time you perform CPR on a patient, it counts as one breath with their lungs were properly working, it circulates blood a little no matter what state heart is in, and with some luck, you might be able to restart their heart. Don't be afraid to crack some ribs while you're at it, remember, if they died with ribs intact, you didn't try hard enough!

CPR consists of two parts - the chest compressions to kickstart the heart and the mouth to mouth resuscitation to give them air. To perform CPR on a patient, they must be in cardiac arrest, and for the mouth-to-mouth part, neither of you can be wearing a mask or other mouth covering. Click on the patient with an empty hand while on help intent to perform CPR. This requires both of you to remain still for a short period. This can be repeated as many times as necessary until treatment can be administered.

Blood Transfusion

If a patient has lost a large amount of blood, they will require a blood transfusion to allow for full circulation and prevent further brain damage.

• Prepare an IV drip with a blood bag containing an appropriate blood type (see below). If available, you should use NanoBlood, which is more efficient and does not care for blood types. You can order it in Cargo or have a Pharmacist make some from plain blood.
• Ensure that the IV drip is in Inject mode.
• Attach the IV drip to the patient.
• Monitor the patient's blood circulation via health analyzer.
• If an IV drip is not available, injecting the patient with blood from a syringe is workable, if a slow and cumbersome, option, as is administering blood pills.
• Iron and nutriment both speed up the patient's natural recovery of lost blood.

Blood Compatibility

It's important to use right type, to avoid blood rejection and poisoning. Blood between two different species is never compatible, even if it shares the same color. Several pre-loaded blood bags in the Treatment Center storage closet contain NanoBlood, which can be given to any patient regardless of species without fear of rejection, but donated blood should be reserved for members of the same species.

If there is no NanoBlood available, and no precise blood type match as an alternative, look for a replacement by these rules:

• Negative can take only negative.
• All types can take O.
• A can take A.
• B can take B.
• AB can take A and B.
• O can take only O.

Blood Compatibility Chart

Reciever	Donor
	O-	O+	B-	B+	A-	A+	AB-	AB+
AB+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+
AB-	+		+		+		+
A+	+	+			+	+
A-	+				+
B+	+	+	+	+
B-	+		+
O+	+	+
O-	+

Dialysis & Stomach Pump

If the patient has undesirable chemicals in his blood or stomach, you can use the Sleeper to remove them. Make sure to pick appropriate function (Dialysis for chemicals in blood, Stomach Pump for ingested chemicals), and remember that Dialysis will remove blood along with chemicals, so keep an eye on their blood levels.

Robotic Limbs, Parts, and Organs

Main Article: Guide to Robotics

Injuries located on robotic limbs cannot be treated by the standard equipment located in the Medbay. Those patients should be sent to the Roboticist for repairs - in the absence of a Roboticist, Physicians with appropriate training (i.e. the Complex Devices skill) may step in. It is still important for individuals to receive treatment for these wounds as soon as possible, as limbs may explode after receiving a certain amount of damage to them.

Robotic limbs are tougher than normal limbs, and do not count towards overall damage for purposes of, for example, putting the patient into cardiac arrest. However, they can only be repaired by welders (for brute damage) or wires (for burn damage), and malfunction if damaged. If one of the medical personnel has training in electronics, they may want to carry a welder and some cable to repair prostheses; otherwise, keep the Roboticist on call.

Artificial organs can be repaired during Surgery with Nanopaste.

Robotic limbs are the best way to treat patients who have suffered a traumatic amputation. It is recommended to maintain good relations with robotics and perhaps, if they are not too busy, acquire a set of robotic limbs just in case you need to attach one.

---