Guide to medicine
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Chief Medical Officer Kingston says: "Doctor! I need you to tear out that man's appendix, throw that clown out of medical, and stitch up that curator's face!" |
Medical care is serious business, and going halfway with your medical treatment can result in someone dying or worse. Make sure you know what you're doing before you try to fix someone up!
If you're going to treat someone, you're going to have to know what tools you need, how to identify injuries, what machinery and facilities you must use, and how to keep people from dying while in treatment.
Identification
First of all, grab a 
Health Scanner HUD from the medical storage and wear it. It shows the patient's overall health condition and therefore shows you instantly whom you should treat first from a group of patients. Identification is the first and foremost step in administering treatment. Here are ways to identify the type of injuries a person may have:
Types of damage
- There are four primary kinds of damage: Suffocation, brute, burn, and toxin. These damage types have first aid kits associated with them and are therefore treatable without needing further medical equipment. The standard white first aid kit has materials to treat brute, burn, and bleeding
- There are additional kinds of damage that occur less often: cellular, brain damage, and bleeding
- You want the patient to be as healthy as possible, so you have to heal all of these, and they have to be treated individually (unless you use a chemical which heals multiple damage types at once).
- The overall health status (from 100% to -100%) is determined by adding these damages together, except brain damage. If there are 0 damages, the patient is perfectly healthy (100%).
- If the patient has taken summarily 100 damage (except for bleeding), he will be in a critical condition (0%); lying on the ground, unresponsive and gasping for air. When in this condition, the patient cannot breathe on their own and will gradually take suffocation damage until death (-100%). This kills the patient.
- Bleeding is different from other types of damage. See below for a more extensive explanation.
- You can identify these different damage types quickly by using your PDA with the Med-U Cartridge inside and Health Scanning enabled, or a Health Analyzer on the patient. You can also examine the patient (shift-click), but it only shows basic information.
- If a Health Analyzer or a PDA with a Med-U Cartridge is not available, observing the patient and their surroundings will help with diagnosis:
- If there is a pile of vomit next to, or under the patient then they are most likely suffering from toxin damage.
- If there is blood everywhere, blood on the person dying, or the patient has severe bruises, they are suffering from brute damage.
- If the patient has black scars across their body and no blood, or the patient has severe burns, they have been severely burned.
- If the patient is gasping, they are most likely suffocating.
- If the patient keeps fainting, trails drips of blood as they walk or is unresponsive to other forms of "healing" they may be bleeding or be suffering from blood-loss
- If the patient reports other symptoms such as headaches, coughing or vomiting blood, they most likely have a virus.
Your first patient
Your patient can arrive in two ways:
1. The patient walks in and needs treatment.
- "PLS DOC HLEP!!" You can see the patient's overall health status with your Health Scanner HUD with just a glance. However, this will only tell you how serious the situation is and how quickly you need to act.
- How to act:
- Use your PDA or a Health Analyzer on the patient to identify the damage type.
- Proceed with the necessary treatment found in the next chapter.
2. The patient is dragged into Medbay and is in critical condition.
- The patient is unresponsive to the environment, on the floor, and gasping for air.
- How to act:
- The first thing you should do is administer Epinephrine. Epinephrine stops the general decline of the critical patient's health and helps treat wounds if the patient is in crit. Don't give them 30 or more unit of it, as that will cause toxin damage.
- If the patient is bleeding, apply a medical gauze. Dragging a bleeding patient will quickly drain their blood, unless you use a roller bed.
- If Epinephrine is not available, immediately perform CPR a few times to ensure the patient stays alive until you do the next step. Make sure they're also not suffering from any other significant problems, like being on fire, or in a low-pressure environment.
- NOTE: CPR on its own will not heal someone unless they are only suffering from suffocation damage. If they are in crit because of brute/burn/toxins/cellular damage it will only keep them from dying.
- Now you have many options:
- Take the patient to a sleeper. Drag the patient's sprite onto it to close it. Inject appropriate chemicals.
- Strip the patient's space suit off if they have one and put the patient into a cryochamber, wait for them to heal up and eject.
- Use bruise packs, ointments, brute patches, burn patches, salbutamol or other appropriate medication. See next section for examples.
Treatment
Suffocation
This is the first and most important to look out for. It is not visible on the body, but people suffering from it will gasp for air. On the Health Analyzer, it is the leftmost, blue damage type.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Being in an area without enough oxygen present will suffocate you.
- Missing a significant amount of blood will deal suffocation damage over time.
- Once you are in critical condition, you slowly take suffocation damage.
- Some medicines and drugs can deal suffocation damage.
- Some poisons, like Cyanide, deal suffocation damage.
- Some virus symptoms can cause suffocation.
- Missing a pair of lungs.
- Missing a heart, or having a heart that stopped beating.
Treatment:
- If a person is in crit, you can CPR them. Remove your and patient's mask and helmet, switch to help intent and click on them.
- If a person is not in critical condition, and they have no bad chemicals in their bloodstream, placing them in an oxygen-filled area will suffice.
- Epinephrine stops the suffocation damage that is dealt from being in a crit state.
- Salbutamol quickly treats suffocation damage.
- Perfluorodecalin very quickly heals suffocation damage, but deals some toxin damage.
- Guide_to_chemistry#Cryoxadone in a cryotube or a very cold environment heal most types of damage, including suffocation.
- Orange juice isn't the most effective cure, but it does help a bit when no other options are available
- If a person is missing a heart, replace their heart or give them Corazone.
- If a person's heart has stopped beating, use a defibrillator and their heart should return to normal, or give them Corazone.
Brute
This is a straight-forward damage category. This is the far right damage type on Health Analyzer. Brute wounds are visible, and limb-specific.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Being physically hit by almost anything does brute damage.
- Some chemicals can deal brute damage.
Treatment:
- Bruise packs can be applied to the damaged limb. Use a medical scanner or ask the patient to examine themselves.
- Styptic powder patches (brute patches) heal burn damage instantly and over time.
- Synthflesh patches heal brute damage instantly.
- Bicaridine from a sleeper or chemistry heals brute damage over time. 30u is overdose.
- Saline-glucose solution heals brute slowly. Can be overdosed
- Cryoxadone in a cryotube or a very cold environment heal most types of damage, including brute.
- Food can heal brute damage slowly.
- Milk, bilk, soy milk, soy latte, cafe latte, and cream can heal it very slowly.
- There are some job-specific ways of healing it: donuts heal security, bananas and banana juice heal clowns and monkeys, "nothing" in mime's bottle of nothing heals mimes.
Burns
This is a straight-forward damage category. This is the damage type second to the right on Health Analyzer. Burns are visible, and limb-specific.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Temperature too high or too low causes burn damage. That includes coldness of space and being set on fire.
- Lasers deal burn damage.
- Some chemicals deal burn damage.
- Electric shocks deal burn damage.
Treatment:
- Ointments can be applied to the damaged limb. Use a medical scanner or ask the patient to examine themselves.
- Silver sulfadiazine patches (burn patches) heal burn damage instantly and over time.
- Synthflesh patches heal burn damage instantly.
- Oxandrolone pills heal burn damage over time, and are more effective on severe burns. Can be overdosed.
- Kelotane from a sleeper or chemistry will heal burn damage over time. Do not administer more than 30u to prevent overdoses.
- Saline-glucose solution heals burn slowly. Can be overdosed.
- Cryoxadone in a cryotube or a very cold environment heal most types of damage, including burn.
- Tomato juice can heal it very slowly.
- There are some job-specific ways of healing it: donuts heal security, bananas and banana juice heal clowns and monkeys, "nothing" in mime's bottle of nothing heals mimes.
Toxins
This is the second from the left on the Health Analyzer. It is not visible on the person's health doll. Thankfully it is easy to treat.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Breathing plasma deals toxic damage.
- Many chemicals deal toxic damage.
- Drinking a lot of alcohol can hurt your liver and deal toxic damage.
- High doses of radiation deal toxic damage.
Treatment:
- Mind the difference between chemical named "toxin" and toxic damage. The chemical deals toxic damage as long as it is present in bloodstream. Anti-toxin, charcoal and Ppentetic acid purge toxins and heal the damage. In extreme cases, the person might be taking toxic damage faster than the anti-toxin can heal it! In these cases, you need to prioritise purging the toxic chemicals.
- Anti-toxin heals toxic damage and purges toxic chemicals. Can be overdosed.
- Charcoal works the same as anti-toxin, but can not be overdosed.
- Pentetic acid heals toxic damage and purges toxins more quickly than charcoal. Also purges radiation.
- Calomel purges toxic chemicals more quickly than pentetic acid but doesn't heal toxic damage, and will deal toxic damage if the patient has 20 health or more.
- Cryoxadone in a cryotube or a very cold environment heal most types of damage, including toxic.
- Lime juice, tea, iced tea can slowly heal it.
- Vomiting heals some toxic damage. You usually can't control it, however.
Bleeding
After a limb sustains 30 brute damage, it will start bleeding.
IVs and gauze will temporarily provide relief from bleeding. 
WARNING: Incorrect blood types are toxic to the patient, and will not replenish their blood!
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Treating bloodloss:
- Bandage wound with a medical gauze to stop bleeding.
- Locate brute damage.
- Treat brute damages above ~30 to halt bleeding.
- Assess blood levels, if low or critical, proceed with blood transfusion.
- If a blood transfusion is unavailable, blood will be naturally produced by the body, albeit slowly.
- Iron and most foods will improve blood regeneration.
Blood transfusion:
- Use medical scanner on patient to find blood type.
- Obtain blood pack from surgery, virology, or cargo.
- Make sure IV drip is in the blue "inject" mode. You toggle this by clicking the IV drip when nothing is attached to it.
- Attach blood pack to IV drip.
- Click-drag IV drip onto patient.
- Check up on patient's blood levels regularly, this process moves quickly.
- Detach patient from IV drip by click-dragging the IV drip onto the patient again, or simply clicking the IV. If you forget this the patient will take some brute damage from the needle being ripped out.
- Detach blood pack by clicking on the IV drip.
Blood donation:
- Make sure IV drip is in the red "take" mode. You toggle this by clicking the IV drip when nothing is attached to it.
- Attach a beaker or an empty blood pack to IV drip.
- Attach to a donor by click-dragging it onto the donor.
- Blood pack will automatically fill. The alarm will sound if patient's blood levels reach critical.
- Detach IV drip by click-dragging it onto the donor again or simply clicking the IV.
- Click on IV drip to eject the beaker or blood pack. Label appropriately.
Cellular damage
Rare kind of damage. It shows up on scanners and is visible on examination, but exact numbers aren't shown.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Slimes. They deal cellular damage when they feed on someone.
- Cloned people will have cellular damage, unless the cloner is fully upgraded and the cloning was 100% complete.
- Decloners from Abductors or R&D.
Treatment:
- Cryoxadone in a cryotube is the most common way to heal cellular damage.
- Rezadone instantly heals all cellular damage, even with only a 1 unit pill, and does not require a cryotube. But it's hard to get.
Keep in mind that cellular damage is not related to genetic disabilities (which must be treated with mutadone)! They are different things.
Brain damage
Nasty. Randomly causes brain traumas and other problems. If a brain reaches 0% health, the person dies. To be able to see exact brain health, you need an advanced health analyzer, which CMO gets one of by default. Getting killed and cloned does not cure brain traumas.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Imperfect cloning.
- Certain chemicals such as mercury, impedrezene, or fentanyl
- Abusing certain narcotics.
- Chaplain's bible applied to the head.
- Unholy Water
- Brainrot
- Earthsblood from Ambrosia Gaia.
Treatment:
- Mannitol pills or injections slowly cure brain damage, but does not cure brain traumas.
- Neurine will treat the most basic brain traumas. These traumas have no prefix on health analyzer.
- Brain Surgery, will also cure severe traumas. You can identify severe brain traumas by the prefix "severe" on health analyzer. Nanites can cure these and lower level traumas.
- Lobotomy will cure deep-rooted brain traumas. You can identify deep-rooted brain traumas by the prefix "deep-rooted" on health analyzer. Some viruses can cure these and lower level traumas.
- Permanent brain traumas are either permanent or curable with magic, which is typically unavailable. Failing a lobotomy can cause these traumas. You can identify permanent brain traumas by the prefix "permanent" on health analyzer. If you get one of these, then assume "this is life now".
Dismemberment
Patients may lose their head, legs or arms. A patient missing arms can't hold items or interact with objects. Missing legs will slow down a patient, but missing both legs also prevents them from holding any items unless they're buckled to a chair. Missing both arms and legs Patients missing a head will die in most cases as their body lacks its brain.
Examining a patient will describe any missing limbs.
Ways of getting damaged:
- Strong physical forces, such as explosions.
- Getting hit by strong, sharp objects such as swords.
- Patients who experience severe trauma to the chest may have their organs spill out, but the torso will remain intact.
- Amputation via surgery.
Treatment:
- Prosthetic replacement via surgery.
- Cyborg limbs may be used. Robotics can produce cyborg limbs, but there is also a crate of cheap prosthetic limbs in Medbay Storage.
- Organic limbs may be used. In most cases a detached limb can be found and reattached. However, all the limb's damage will be transferred to the patient, so be ready to treat brute and bleeding. Any organic limb will also cause toxin damage when replaced.
- Synthetic limbs from a limb grower may be used. The limb grower can only produce arms and legs, unless emagged.
Using Sleepers and Cryogenics
Sleeper
Sleepers are a very important part of the medbay. They allow you to inject various chemicals, and have unlimited stocks of them. Always use sleepers over pills, patches and especially bruise packs and ointments! The latter is used by field medics, or when cryogenics treatment is not available. Keep in mind that when the patient's health is very low, sleepers become unusable, with the exception of injecting epinephrine.
Sleepers also show you chemicals present in person's bloodstream.
Scientists can produce upgraded parts for sleepers. See here how upgrading will make your life much easier.
How to use:
- Ensure the sleeper is open. If it's not, open it.
- Pull the patient near the sleeper.
- Click and hold on the patient, move the cursor to the sleeper, then release. This puts the patient inside.
- Click on the sleeper to open the menu.
- Inject chemicals they need (note: these are the non-upgraded chemicals):
- Epinephrine: Brings down and limits high suffocation damage. Heals brute, burn and toxin damage very slowly if the patient is in critical condition.
- Salbutamol: Heals suffocation damage.
- Bicaridine: Heals brute damage slowly over time.
- Kelotane: Heals burn damage slowly over time.
- Morphine: Puts person to sleep after some time.
- It's not necessary to wait now, open the sleeper and kick them out.
A quick guide to the upgraded chemicals:
- Anti-toxin: Heals toxin damage slowly over time.
- Mannitol: Heals brain damage.
- Oculine: Heals eye damage and cures nearsightedness. Has a chance of curing blindness.
- Inacusiate: Heals ear damage instantly, but cannot cure genetic deafness.
- Mutadone: Cures all genetic mutations, both good and bad.
- Pentetic Acid: Heals toxin damage slowly over time. Reduces radiation and removes any other chemical from the bloodstream, including other healing chems, so use it sparingly.
- Omnizine: Heals brute, burn, toxin and suffocation damage very slowly over time.
If you inject bicaridine, kelotane and anti-toxin all in one patient then the three chemicals will form tricordrazine. This may result in an overdose as the combined chems may go over the 30 unit threshold.
Cryogenics Tube
Cryotube uses the fact that cryoxadone is effective at healing all types of damage, but only works in cold environments. Use it mainly to heal cellular damage, or if you're out of other options/unsure what to do. This is slow and forces the patient to sleep, so prefer using a sleeper or brute/fire patches for common damage types.
Cryotubes can also be upgraded by science parts. Better matter bins allow them to work slightly faster and more efficiently.
How to prepare (This needs to be done at the start of every round!):
- Wrench the oxygen canisters to connect them to the tubes and the freezer.
- Turn on the freezer. Set it to lowest temperature available.
- Load beakers with chemicals. A common and highly effective mix for general use is cryoxadone, clonexadone and mannitol.
- Set the tubes to Auto instead of Manual, so they'll open after the patient is healed. Otherwise, they'll be trapped in until someone opens the tube from outside.
How to use:
- Ensure the cryo tube is open first. If not, open it.
- Pull the person on top of the tube.
- Remove all clothes that prevent freezing, such as hardsuits. Else it won't work.
- Close the cryo tube with its menu, or click on them with your mouse and drag their sprite to the tube.
- Open the tube menu and turn it on. If their health starts to improve (sometimes it takes a moment to start), they're all set. If not, make sure everything is set up properly (cryoxadone in the tubes? pressure in the canisters?).
- Turning it on will put the patient to sleep.
- If set to auto, the tube will turn off and pop open automatically.
- Shake the person to get them up (switch to help intent and click on them multiple times).
- Let them redress (or do it for them) then kick them out.
Rarer Cases
These situations are not as common as normal damages, but they are still VERY LIKELY to happen. AND most of these cases are also more severe, and it is essential to be fucking fast and know this stuff!
So read up, these are the things that will separate quacks from real doctors!
Overdose
Giving too much of some chemicals or drugs can cause an overdose. This means that you aren't doing your job correctly and you may even kill the patient if you don't stop doing it!
Chemicals that can overdose:
- Bicaridine 30u
- Kelotane 30u
- Anti-toxin 30u
- Tricordrazine 30u
- Omnizine: 30u (Really deadly)
- Salicylic Acid 25u
- Ephedrine 45u (Addiction at 30u)
- Morphine 30u (Addiction at 25u)
- Atropine 35u
- Epinephrine 30u
- Nicotine 35u (Addiction at 30u, not sure its achievable with normal cig use)
- Crank 20u (Addiction at 10u, also really deadly)
- Krokodil 20u (Addiction at 15u, addiction is what causes skin and bones minus skin)
- Histamine 30u (This is what makes Histamines dangerous)
How to treat:
- Charcoal purges chemicals slowly and can help with toxin damage.
- Calomel purges chemicals quickly and is relatively easy to make in chemistry.
- Pentetic acid clears all chemicals from the body very quickly, and can also be found in upgraded sleepers.
Disease
Diseases are the most frustrating thing you will deal with, as it spreads, and can infect you as well. A disease can be identified easily with the Health Scanner HUD, it giving a green-unhappy-face-icon next to the patient. PDA or a Health Analyzer will give more detailed information about the disease and its cure.
How to Treat:
- Suit up in anti-viral equipment.
- Isolate the patient from public areas (if they have an infectious disease).
- Use your Health Analyzer or PDA to see the cure for the disease (usually some basic chemical element).
- Administer the chemical element needed. OR if the virologist has made a vaccine, administering one unit of it will instantly cure and immunize.
- Monitor the patient's condition, do not leave them until they are clear and have become resistant to the disease.
- Check if you are infected after dealing with the patient.
After:
- If you did not have the vaccine for the disease, take a blood sample from the cured patient and hand it to the virologist to help him/her make a vaccine.
If you half-ass curing people, the disease may return and kill the person. And they can get infected if they are cloned as well!
Blindness
The person cannot see, they usually will scream about this endlessly.
How to treat:
- If vision is just blurry, give carrots or a pair of prescription glasses.
- If they are completely blind, eye surgery.
- Omnizine has a chance of curing blindness while slowly healing eye damage.
- Oculine can be made by chemistry, and will heal all eye damage.
Deafness
The person cannot hear, they are usually unresponsive to verbal communication and can't even hear themselves talking.
What causes it:
- Genetic mutations can cause genetic deafness.
- Ear damage can render a person deaf temporarily, but extreme ear damage causes permanent deafness.
- Explosions cause ear damage.
- Flashbangs cause ear damage.
How to treat:
- Most ear damage will heal on its own.
- Inacusiate heals minor ear damage instantly.
- Put earmuffs on the patient and minor ear damage will quickly heal.
- Mutadone can reset genetic mutations including deafness.
Genetic Disabilities
Disabilities cannot be cured by normal medical tools. If a patient appears to be unable to move and/or they speak in very short sentences, they most likely have a genetic disability.
How to treat:
- Ask a competent geneticist to remove the bad mutation.
- A one unit mutadone pill or injection will instantly cure all genetic abnormalities. This includes beneficial ones.
Radiation
You will rarely treat this, it causes people to black out all the time and take steady toxin damage. It either comes from space radiation surges, after which crew members will "feel strange" and begin to vomit, but more likely you'll be treating engineers who got too close to the supermatter or geneticists and people undergoing genetic testing who've stuck themselves with too many SE injectors.
How to treat:
- If you have potassium iodide or pentetic acid, use them. These will remove the radiation before it poisons the patient further.
- Else, treat with charcoal (Anti-toxin) until the radiation levels have subsided.
Hallucinations
This nasty effect causes the victim to see (usually deadly) objects in his and others' hands, along with random visions of people and creatures attacking him, causing stamina damage. Extremely unpleasant. Caused by changelings, mindbreaker toxin,supermatter, and some bad 'shrooms.
How to treat:
- Synaptizine is good for removing hallucinations. But can cause light toxin damage.
- Haloperidol is not as good as synaptizine at removing hallucinations, but it will also quickly purge drugs that are likely causing them.
Death
If the patient is dead, the basic procedure for handling stiffs is the same. Your first plan of action should be trying to defibrillate the body and bring them back to life quickly. If they have this icon on your health scanner hud: 
it means the body is fresh enough for defibrillation.
- Inspect the body. Does it say they committed suicide or that their soul has departed? Nothing you can do for them, fast track them to the morgue.
- If they're just normal dead, scan them with a health analyzer. Do they have more than 180 brute or burn damage (tracked separately, having 179 of each is fine)? If so, you must heal the corpse with synthflesh until it has under 180 brute and burn. You can buy synthflesh sprays from the NanoMed Plus or have it made in chemistry.
- If the patient is wearing a space suit or hardsuit, take it off. To take it off, drag the sprite of the patient onto yours, and click the hardsuit in the menu that pops up.
- Once the patient is prepared, equip your defib. The large one goes on your backpack slot, and the compact defib that the CMO gets goes on your belt slot. Then empty both of your hands, and click the new defib hud icon on your top left to take out the paddles. Activate/click the paddles with the hand you're holding them in to wield them in both hands. Stop dragging the patient (with H or delete) or you will be shocked. Switch to help
intent, target the chest, and then click on the patient. After a few seconds, you'll deliver an electric shock. - If the defib pings and says the resuscitation was successful, drag the patient to a sleeper or use other medicine to get them healed up. If it instead says they have severe tissue damage, they have more than 180 brute or burn damage, and needs more synthflesh. If it says the heart tissue has decayed beyond saving, you are too late. If the body is a husk then defib will never work.
If defibrillation can't be done, you have a few choices:
- The easiest solution is usually to drag the corpse to cloning. If cloning is upgraded enough, you will be able to clone even husks and brains.
- If you have many corpses then cloning can be a slow process. Sometimes cloning might even be sabotaged. Consider doing revival surgery instead, if available.
- Another option for revival is the chemical strange reagent, which works similarly to defibrillation, except the patient needs to be below 100 brute and burn damage (instead of 180), and it works on corpses of any age.
- You can also clone people in Hydroponics, which works even if the patient is missing a head. See Replica Pod Cloning. This option creates podperson clones.
PLEASE NOTE In the morgue there are lights on the side of the trays. The red light means there is a dead body with no ghost occupying it. Green light means there is a body with a ghost in it, which means you should clone it. The green light is normally accompanied by a beeping sound as well, which can be turned off by alt-clicking the tray.
Cheat Sheet for the Lazy Efficient Doctor
Afternote
If you aren't serious about healing someone, don't give up halfway, get proper medical staff to help them. Don't leave them in Genetics to just die either (this wastes everyone else's time, except yours, you selfish fuck), at least try to have a doctor save them.