Guide to Medicine

Foreword

The original guide was compiled by a community effort led by WickedTempest and ported here.

Important reminder that it's possible to stabilize anyone no matter their condition, it just depends on what's available for you to treat them. Obviously not every situation presents ideal circumstances. Don't beat yourself up over something that you see now as a simple fix well after the whole ordeal has passed. Just learn, and keep learning.

Lastly, if you're only joining medical for kinky redhead stutter slut nurse scenes with no intention of doing your job or learning how to do it, then you really shouldn't be playing medical.

A Friendly Reminder From The Admins

As tempting as it may be to help, remember that it is against the rules to do things like breaking into medbay to treat patients when there are active medical staff on duty. Bandaging up minor injuries with the publicly available first aid kits is usually fine, as is performing CPR or otherwise preventing someone from dying until the medics arrive, but don't go outright doing someone's job for them.

At the very least, give the medics a chance to respond - nobody wants to drop everything they're doing and haul ass across the station with a rollerbed only to find that cargo were already on the scene with a crate of medical supplies and healed the patient up to full in the time it took for them to run from medbay to the gateway.

Triage

Triage is the process of prioritizing patients to distribute limited medical resources efficiently. Treating every patient to perfect health in the order they arrive could lead to deaths further down the queue.

There are different methods of triage, depending on the environment. For example, the first medic to arrive at a scene has only seconds to a few minutes per patient to triage and can only check basic parameters like breathing and pulse. A doctor at a medical facility receiving patients who have already received first aid can use scanners to identify problems below the skin's surface.

Most systems use color-coded categories, typically red (critical, life-threatening injury), yellow (potentially life-threatening injury), and green (non-life-threatening injury). All red patients are treated first, followed by yellow, and then green patients. It is also common to categorize deceased patients as black. In some cases, a patient may be alive, but it is clear that current resources are insufficient to save them, or there is no way to save them at all. Depending on the system, these patients are categorized as black or blue.

HUD

A helpful tool, not only for triage, is a MedHUD. It will allow you to assess a patient's overall health from a glance. Letters in braces refer to the letters in the image.

• A health bar (A) indicates overall health.
  • Blue: 100% Health
  • Green: 78-99% Health
  • Yellow: 42-71% Health
  • Red: 1-21% Health
  • Red, Flashing: -40-0% Health
  • Critical!: -85:-50% Health
  • Dead: -100% Health

• A red blood drop icon (B) indicates a low blood level that will cause asphyxiation if not treated immediately, especially if the icon flashes (D).

• A broken bone gets indicated by grey-green icon depicting a, well, broken bone (C).

• Infections in the body are indicated by a purple chevron (D)

• Organ damage, regardless of severity, is indicated by a green cross on a blueish rectangle (E)

Dead Patients

Do not waste more time than you need to on dead people, come back to them later. Death is a stable condition, just make sure they don't start rotting.

Cryogenics

Cryo is all about suspending someone in animation and healing them to boot! If someone is in a pretty bad way, tossing them into a (correctly setup) cryo tube will help with most problems on the surface. Even if the damage isn't healed, the cryo tube is basically one gigantic stasis bag.

Damage Types

Brute

Cuts, lacerations, and bruising all make up the red number on the health analyzer, normally caused by physical trauma such as punching, getting hit with something, being dragged with open wounds, slamming into walls, etc. Sometimes high brute values may break bones, which will require Surgery, or the limb may even become dismembered! Treatment for brute damage on it's own is listed below:

• Advanced Trauma Kits: Heals 3 brute on the target limb immediately and will allow it to heal on it's own if the damage is below 50. The 3 damage that's taken off works even if the patient is dead, which may be useful if a defib is unable to resuscitate someone due to high damage. ATKs also disinfects wounds if applied early.
• Bicaridine: A red colored medicine which heals 6 brute per unit, meaning a full (15u) syringe will heal 90 brute damage. Best utilized in liquid form, overdoses at 30u.
• Tricordrazine: A purple medicine that heals all underlined damage, albeit slowly, healing 1.5 damage per unit. Best utilized in liquid form but not alone, overdoses at 30u.

Burn

Skins, burns, and scars make up the yellow number on the health analyzer, normally caused by intense temperatures such as fire, extremely cold temperatures, lasers, and electrocution. Exceptionally high burn values may vaporize a limb, and can cause bloodloss on top of easily becoming infected. Massive amounts of burn damage may cause your character to be 'husked,' unable to be resuscitated no matter what you do. Treatment for burn damage on its own is listed below:

• |Advanced Burn Kits: Essentially the burn variant of ATKs. Primarily used to disinfect burn wounds.
• Kelotane: A yellow colored medicine which heals 6 burn per unit, meaning a full (15u) syringe will heal 90 burn damage. Overdoses at 30u.
• Dermaline: An orange-yellow colored medicine which heals 12 burn per unit. Overdoses at 15u (one full syringe, be careful).
• KeloDerm: A yellow colored medicine with Kelotane and Dermaline mixed in 1:1. Since the medicines are separate, they work quicker, though KeloDerm doesn't heal as much as Dermaline alone. Overdoses at 30u.
• Tricordrazine: A purple medicine that heals all underlined damage, albeit slowly, healing 1.5 damage per unit. Overdoses at 30u.

Toxin

Damage dealt by toxins make up the green number on the health analyzer, normally caused by poisons, overdosing, plasma exposure/plasma-infected clothes, radiation, infections/necrosis, damaged liver, and critical blood levels. Treatment for toxin damage on its own is listed below:

• Dylovene: A green colored medicine which heals 4 toxin per unit, and can treat the liver if its damage is below 10. No overdose (there is but it just treats itself). Can have damaging effects if there are no toxins present, so don't use it at pre-medication before expected exposure to toxins.
• Carthatoline: A grey colored medicine which heals 8 toxin per unit, but has the side effect of inducing nausea in the patient. Can treat liver damage. No overdose.
• Arithrazine: A green colored medicine which heals 10 toxin per unit, but has the side effect of causing minor brute damage. It also metabolizes very slowly. Overdoses at 30u.
• Tricordrazine: A purple medicine that heals all underlined damage, albeit slowly, healing 1.5 damage per unit. Overdoses at 30u.

Suffocation (Hypoxia)

Damage dealt by lack of oxygenated blood being pumped through the body makes up the blue number on the health analyzer, normally caused by suffocation, low blood levels, heart damage, and lung damage. Treatment for hypoxia on its own is listed below:

• Inaprovaline: A cyan colored medicine which doesn't actually heal hypoxia, but instead halts any further damage. Overdoses at 60u.
• Dexalin: A blue colored medicine which heals 15 oxy per unit. Overdoses at 30u.
• Dexalin Plus: A blue colored medicine which heals 150 oxy per unit. Best utilized in pill form (though this reduces healing down to 75 oxy per unit) or in a dropper set to one unit, overdoses at 15u (one full syringe).
• Tricordrazine: A purple medicine that heals all underlined damage, albeit slowly, healing 3 oxy damage per unit. Overdoses at 30u.

Genetic

Damage dealt by either radiation or slime digestion makes up genetic damage, which the health analyzer can only determine by means of a red prompt, requiring a body scanner for a precise measurement of genetic damage. Treatment for that kind of damage is listed below:

• Cryoxadone: A pale blue medicine which heals the above damage, but requires that the body be cooled to 170 Kelvin or lower, usually by means of cryo cells.
• Cronexadone: A pale blue medicine which works exactly the same as Cryoxadone, but does everything faster.
• Cryo-Mix: A 1:1 mix of Cryoxadone and Cronexadone, works much like KeloDerm in that the two medicines work separately, therefore faster.
• Rezadone: A grey medicine which heals genetic damage without the need for cold temperatures. Overdoses at 30u, though 10u may induce dizziness.

Radiation

Damage dealt by exposure to the Supermatter, being EVA during a solar flare, being injected with radioactive reagents, or destroying/activating particular artifacts make up radiation damage, which the health analyzer can only determine by means of a red prompt, requiring a body scanner for a precise measurement of radiation damage. Treatment for radiation damage is listed below:

• Hyronalin: A green medicine which heals 30 radiation per unit, albeit slowly, but does not heal the resulting damage of radiation. Overdoses at 30.
• Arithrazine: A green medicine which heals 70 radiation and 10 toxin per unit, but has the side effect of dealing some brute damage. Overdoses at 30u.

Organ

Damage represented on the body scanner that corresponds with the trauma inflicted on organs, either by certain poisons, severe physical trauma, bones moving in the area organs are present (lower body, chest, head), or certain items necessary for function being absent. An organ is considered dead at 30 damage. Treatment for organ damage is listed below:

• Peridaxon: A purple medicine which heals 1 organ damage per unit, and heals all internal organs. Overdoses at 10u.
• Alkysine: A yellow medicine which heals 30 organ damage per unit, but only heals the brain. Overdoses at 30u.
• Imidazoline: A pale lavender medicine medicine which heals 5 organ damage per unit, but only heals the eyes. Overdoses at 30u.
• Dylovene: A green medicine which heals 2 organ damage per unit, but only heals the liver if it's below 10 organ damage. No overdose.
• Carthatoline: A grey medicine, works the same as Dylovene in it's use in healing the liver, but can heal it at any damage. No overdose.

Other

Blood Loss

Blood carries oxygen to various areas in the body of a patient, and without oxygenation (whether by lack of air or lack of blood, in this case) the patient will slowly decline in health until they die, therefore stopping bleeding is your top priority, and should be treated as a critical injury. For low blood levels, administering Dexalin will help with the oxy damage resulting from blood loss, and will help alleviate the risk of brain damage as a result. Critical blood levels, however, will result in massive spikes of hypoxia and annoying toxins, though this only occurs at 40% blood volume. Treatment to stop bleeding is listed below:

• For external bleeding cases:
  • Pressure: Getting an aggressive grab and help intent clicking the limb with the grab in hand will apply pressure to the wound, slowing the bleeding, but not stopping it entirely. If you are bleeding, help intent click the limb and you will begin applying pressure. This should only be used if you have nothing to treat the bleeding and are waiting on someone else to bring gauze/ATKs.
  • Gauze: This is the most basic item in medical to treat cuts and lacerations provided you have enough of it. Every colonist gets a roll as part of their emergency box.
  • Advanced Trauma Kit: ATKs are better than gauze as they can disinfect the wound when it's used, and instantly heals 3 brute damage on the limb it's applied to.
• For internal bleeding (IB) cases:
  • Cryogenics: Placing a patient with internal bleeding into a (correctly setup) cryo tube will both halt (not fix) the bleeding and stop it from getting worse. This is a temporary solution.
  • Bicaridine and Inaprovaline: These two medicines together (they have to be together, not separate) will prevent the internal bleeding from worsening, but will not halt the bleeding.
  • Surgery: The main method of treating internal bleeding is through surgery.
  • Myelamine: A medicine found in (expensive) clotting kits that will seal any internal bleeding. The fastest way to treat.
  • Bicaridine: Overdosing Bicaridine (30u) will deal toxins to the patient, but it may clot internal bleeding. Generally a last resort if none of the other methods are available.

Once the bleeding has ceased, you will have to help the patient raise their blood count. The following are some methods to assist with that:

• Dexalin/Dexalin Plus: Will assist in oxygenating the blood, helping to prevent potential brain damage.
• Sanguinum: Enables the bone marrow to produce more blood. Side-effects vomiting blood.
• Iron: A simple reagent that must be ingested in order to work. Replenishes 8u of blood per unit.
• Nutriment: Basic nutrients that can be found in protein shakes. Must be ingested. Replenishes 4u of blood per unit.
• Protein: Animal proteins found in meat and protein shakes. Must be ingested. Replenishes 4u of blood per unit.
• 20 Iron, 20 Nutriment, 20 Protein: The three reagents mentioned above in one 60u pill, which can replenish blood rather quickly as there are three separate reagents.
• IV Drip with compatible blood: Bloodbags can hold 200u of blood (a little less than half a patient's total blood volume) and is generally the best method of replacing blood.

Infection

Infections sprout when a wound isn't treated and disinfected in time, and is accompanied by a fever (check temperature). If left alone, infections can rapidly kill a patient, even exponentially fast if it's bad enough. Infections are commonly identified by means of the body scanner. The following are the levels of infection:

• L1 (Mild): Pain messages and the start of fever.
• L2 (Acute): More pain messages, infection becomes more prevalent and visible.
• L3 (GANGRENE): Beginning of lethal toxins, organ death, and necrosis.

The following are some symptoms of infection based on where it's located:

• Meningitis (Brain)
  • L1: Stiff neck
  • L2: Severe headache (+1 confusion at random intervals)
• Conjunctivitis (Eyes)
  • L1: Itchy eyes
  • L2: Blurred vision (+10 eye_blurry at random intervals)
• Endocarditis (Heart)
  • L1: Chest tightness
  • L2: Chest pain (+25 halloss)
• Pyelonephritis (Kidneys)
  • L1: Lower back pain
  • L2: Malaise
• Pyogenic Abscess (Liver)
  • L1: Right side abdomen pain
  • L2: Poor blood filtration (toxins buildup)
• Pneumonia (Lungs)
  • L1: Coughing
  • L2: Shortness of breath (+30 oxyloss)
• Staph Infection (All external limbs)
  • L1: Pain notificiation
  • L2: Sharp pain temporarily disables limb

L2 infections and lower require only 15u of Spaceacillin and monitoring. L3 infections require that Spaceacillin be overdosed (45u) immediately with Carthatoline to accompany the high toxins. If Carth is unavailable, stack Dylovene and Tricordrazine together. Corophizine can treat infections at any stage before total organ necrosis, and works faster than Spaceacillin, but is disabling and uncomfortable to the patient, and has other side-effects. The following will go over further necessary treatments:

• Limb gangrene:
  • Conduct necrotic limb repair.
• Organ necrosis:
  1. Print a synthetic replacement organ.
  2. Remove the organ via surgery and replace it with the synthetic counterpart (if it's the heart, add the second heart before removing the first one).
  • If the brain or heart (unless you're fast) is necrotic, the patient will need surgery.

A note about necrosis: If an organ is allegedly necrotic (namely on a printout) but the patient's temperature is normal and there was no previous infection, then surprisingly the organ isn't actually necrotic at all.

Fractures

Bones fractures can be separated by three identifications: hairline, fracture, and broken. These three different types of fractures no longer play any part mechanically, though from an RP standpoint, hairline is the least severe while broken is the most severe (and therefore painful). Fractures can, however, deal damage to organs if they move around. Treatment for fractures is listed below:

• Splints: A half-cast that keeps the fractured bone in place and prevents it from moving. This is a temporary remedy, and requires the following to actually treat.
• Surgery: By means of bone gel and bone setter, a fracture can be mended rather quickly.
• Ossisine: A rare medicine, can heal fractures without surgery (provided the target limb's damage isn't above the fracture threshold). Do note, however, that it will cause severe pain, and should probably have at least Tramadol administered alongside it.

Loadout

Improving the likelihood of a patient's survival depends not only on your medical knowledge but also on what's available to you, particularly medicines and equipment on your person. The following will go over optimal loadouts used by many doctors, though nothing is stopping you from experimenting; these are merely recommendations, and it may do well to inquire other experienced medical players as to what their loadout is.

Necessary Equipment

The equipment that most doctors have equipped:

• A MedHUD can evaluate someone's health from a glance. Can also view patient records, allows you to set their physical status (useful for setting patients to SSD or deceased), and allows you to add comments to a patient's record.
• A Medical Belt to store your medicines. Has seven slots and is obviously worn around the belt slot.
• Bicaridine, KeloDerm/Dermaline, Dexalin Plus, Dylovene, and Tramadol placed in your belt.
• A syringe to extract said medicines. Holds 15u (or 30u for a large syringe) and draws/injects by 5u with each click. Can fit on your ear.
• Advanced Trauma and Burn Kits to help with brute and burn wounds respectively, along with disinfecting them. Typically found in the advanced kit that you spawn with.
• A Health Analyzer for a more in-depth analysis of someone's health. Gives precise numbers as to someone's brute, burn, toxin, and oxy damage, and can even tell if someone has genetic, radiation, or brain damage, though not how much. Will also inform the user if the patient has fractures or internal bleeding, but not their location.
• A Labcoat as per Standard Operating Procedure. Has storage space on the inside of the coat and allows you to use the suit storage slot.
• A pair of Latex or Nitrile gloves as per SOP and to prevent infection.
• A Stasis Bag to transport critical patients. Note that these bags don't halt damage at all like what you may be used to, rather they instead slow it down greatly. They also have a limited air supply, about fifteen SIX MINUTES WORTH OH GOD WHY, meaning time is still of concern, and taking a patient out of the bag will crumple the bag up and make it useless. Two things to note, however: you can scan the patient's vitals through the bag simply by clicking it with the health analyzer, and you can load a syringe into the bag to inject into the patient, which can later be retrieved by using a screwdriver on the bag.

Additional useful equipment is as follows:

• Webbing/Drop Pouches to store more items. Webbing and drop pouches are mechanically the same, the only difference being the name and sprite. Attaches to the uniform, found in the accessories section of the loadout tab in character setup.
• A Stethoscope to diagnose heart and lung injuries. Attaches to the uniform.
• A Roller Bed to transport patients safely without dragging. Simply control click the bed, then click-drag a patient onto the bed and you can start running without having to hunt for pixels to pull it. Fits on your back, though it should probably be in your backpack.
• A Portable Freezer to store organs should someone gib or otherwise have their organs removed.
• A Defib to resuscitate patients that have recently died. Must go on your back in order to use (or belt slot, if it's the advanced one), on top of having the other hand empty to use the paddles. May need to be recharged after each use.

Machinery

Medical has quite a few bits and pieces of stationary equipment to help with the workflow, most of which are elaborated on here:

Body Scanner

Pretty much a CT and MRI scanner shoved into one futuristic bed and console, and so much more! This is probably one of the most vital pieces of equipment for Medical as it can diagnose pretty much anything wrong with a patient. Some things it can do are, but not limited to:

• Provide information on all of the damage types.
• How much blood the patient has.
• Show what reagents are in the stomach/blood stream, and how much there is.
• Give a detailed analysis of each limb, including fractures, internal bleeding, the presence of implants, and if there are foreign bodies in the limb.
• Print condensed information to hand to a physician in the event the patient requires surgery.

Sleeper

Next to - or at least not far away from - the body scanner are sleepers, beds that specialize in treating most side effects of trauma, but are otherwise an endless reservoir of some basic medicines. Some features of the sleeper are:

• Gives estimated readout of patient's health by means of number values and colored bar graphs.
• Allows the injection of:
  • Dylovene
  • Inaprovaline
  • Paracetamol
  • Dexalin
• Can conduct dialysis on a patient to remove anything that isn't blood (such as toxins, but medicines are included in this) from their blood stream.
• Can pump the patient's stomach.

Cyrogenics

A true marvel of Medical are its cryogenic tubes, allowing the use of certain medicines that can only be used at sub-zero temperatures, namely Cryoxadone and Cronexadone, which are both capable of healing lots of damage over time. If not for healing genetic damage, it should be noted that one unit of medicine taken from the tube's beaker is multiplied into ten units inside the patient!

How to Setup

While a nice piece of equipment indeed, it requires some prep in order to use it to it's full capacity, namely putting the beakers in and setting the gas cooler. Placing the beakers inside the cryo tube is as simple as taking the beakers on the table in hand and clicking on the tubes with them. As for the gas cooler, head to the storage room and take the stairs to secondary storage. On the west side of the room is a gas cooler, just click on it and set the temperature between 10 and 80 Kelvin, though no lower or higher. Too low could draw a lot of unnecessary power, while setting it too high may slow down how fast the medicine inside the patient can work.

Goodies From Departments

Medical has interactions with other departments besides just treating their injuries, surprisingly enough. Research can fabricate new tools and equipment, Cargo can order important medical stuff, and Security can try to get you to break the Non-Disclosure Policy.

Research

Research, provided there are miners available, can fabricate a number of nice tools for Medical, most of which will be described here:

Surgical

• Surgical Polytool: Requires high tier research and diamonds, but this tool is invaluable to have. It has the ability to perform everything the other surgical tools do together, and fits in your pocket.
• Laser Scalpel: Different versions depending on what's available to Research, but this basically works as a scalpel and hemostat combined when opening an incision.

Quality of Life

• Odysseus: A medical mech with three attachments available, usually a syringe gun with two sleepers. Probably the most important feature is the mech's ability to scan reagents and synthesize them, allowing you to replicate rare medicines.
• Super Capacity/Hyper Capacity Power Cells: A few pieces of equipment, namely the Defibs and Rescue RIG, use power cells to function. Replacing the defib cells will allow more consecutive uses without having to recharge while upgrading the RIG's cell will allow the user to use it's modules more without worrying about losing power after a few uses.
• Advanced Roller Bed: Essentially a regular roller bed but with Scientific(!) blue acrylic paint smeared over it, somehow reducing it's size to better fit in your backpack. Just a smaller bed, pretty much.
• Medibots: Either helpful, annoying, or totally useless. Swiping your ID over it will unlock it's maintenance panel, allowing you to alter a few options. One option that should be turned on is to report treatments over HUD, while one option that should be turned off is the medibot's speaker as leaving it on will probably make anyone go insane. Probably the most important feature is allowing it to draw from a beaker that you can insert, allowing you to make custom mixes. Unfortunately the bot cannot tell the difference between any of the damage types, only treating a patient once their overall health reaches a certain threshold, therefore take care to not load in medicines that the patient can easily overdose on.

Cargo

Cargo provides supplies and crates, most of which will be described here:

• Clotting Kit: A kit filled with autoinjectors containing Myelamine, a medicine that can clot internal bleeding. Rather expensive.
• Vey-Med Voidsuit: A sleek voidsuit which is a pretty big step up from the regular voidsuits that come stocked every shift.
• Stasis Bags: Stasis bags are nice to have but there aren't many. In the event Medical is running low, it's always a good idea to order more.
• Surgical Tools: If you have to order this crate then something terrible has probably happened to the other tools.

Security

Security is an important department but also a rather nosy one. Aside from treating officers and their prisoners, there are some things that you need to remember when dealing with them. Note that Security isn't made up of bad people, and there are some instances where you'll want to call them in case something obviously terrible is happening in medbay.

Alert Codes

• Code Green
  • Unless the patient consents or an officer has a warrant, Medical cannot divulge information about the patient.
  • Warrants usually only give access to body scans and medical records.
  • Warrants can request a psychiatric evaluation of a patient, but officers are not permitted to listen in on the evaluation itself.
  • Requesting the locations of individuals requires a very good reason, or a warrant.
• Code Blue
  • Security does not need a warrant to access patient info such as records, location, autopsies, or body scans. If it's relevant and they ask for it, provide it.
  • Security still does not, however, have access to what a patient divulged to a psychiatrist unless it's directly related to the alert level elevation.
• Code Red
  • You need to provide information about a patient upon request as long as it's relevant.
  • Suspicious confessions from a psychiatric appointment should probably be mentioned to security.

Charges

• Trespassing: If they aren't Medical and they don't have any Medical personnel attending to them and they just ran in just because they could, call Security. They don't need to be in medbay, they'll get in the way of everything, and they pose a rather large risk to patient confidentiality.
• Neglect of Duty: Doctors hanging out in the bar instead of manning the medbay when there's patients awaiting treatment? Neglect of duty, maybe even manslaughter if a patient dies as a result.
• Desecrating a Corpse: Doing anything to a corpse outside of what's elaborated on in their postmortem instructions may land you with this charge, though this mostly only applies when someone decides to butcher, mutilate, or violate the body. Oh yeah, and EATING THE CORPSE FALLS UNDER THIS AS WELL. It also breaks the law regarding cannibalism, but we digress.
• Animal Cruelty: Monkeys are used for experimentation and harvesting antibodies in the event there's a viral outbreak, though some experiments aren't experiments in the slightest, particularly when the experiment's data doesn't yield anything useful at all, namely testing reagents to see what happens, pouring acid on a monkey to see how fast they die, 'experimenting' with Mutagen, et cetera. Experiment ideas should probably be pitched to the CBO before it is conducted.
• Suicide Attempt: While there's no real legal consequence to this, the patient will have to undergo a psychiatric evaluation with supervision until the shift ends. If the patient is deemed too unsafe to keep within medical then they will have to be transferred to the brig.