Drapes, Scalpel, Hemostat, and YOU!
A Complete medical guide for amateur doctors who find themselves trapped in the inevitable hellscape that is Medbay.
Chapter 1: Gearing up
So you just finished your six week medical course at Space DeVry, and want to get your hands on some surgery tools, do ya? Well I’m going to show you exactly where to start. Step 1 in any medical shift is going to be gearing up. Here are the bare essentials, make sure you locate the Medical storage room right off the bat and grab these:
- Medical HUD
This is the most important thing to grab first, because if you don’t, people from other departments will. You do NOT want to be the only guy in medbay without one of these. You can either find these on a table somewhere, or in a locker. After a while, you will eventually be able to print these off at the fab, but you do not want to have to wait that long, trust me. These let you see healthbars of other crewmates, and shows you a little skull icon when someone drags in a body without a soul.
- Medical Belt
This is less important, but you can usually grab it along with the HUD as they are quite often in the same place. Move your PDA over to your pocket slot, and throw this on your belt. A lot of people keep surgical tools here, I prefer to use this one for sutures, bandages, and miscellaneous medicines.
- Health Analyzer
You’re going to be using this constantly. You start with one in your medkit, so make sure you take it out and put it in one of your front pockets for quick access. You use this to check wounded or dead people and find out what type of surgery/treatment they need. It’ll give you a readout on other, more severe wounds as well as how to treat them. Also gives useful information on viruses, their stages and possible cures, and how much blood they currently have as well as blood type. This is hands down your most used item, so don’t lose it! If you do, print off another or buy one from the vending machine.
- Defibrillators
Grab these and put them in the empty wall slots above the stasis beds. Or don’t and let someone else do it. Either way, you’ll need them eventually (unless you have SR, more on that later)
- Surgery mask and gloves (nitrile or latex)
Masks are used to stop the spread of disease, whether it’s you getting it, or you giving it away via coughing or sneezing when worn (but not contact or airborne). Even while worn, viruses can still spread, so you’ll still need to rely on chemists and virologists for viruses that pop up, but at the very least they make you look like you know what you’re doing. Gloves have a 30% shock resistance, so you’re less likely to get zapped when you use the defibrillator on someone. Doesn’t always work, but then again, they make you look cool, which brings me to the next part.
- A cool hat.
I like the medical beret, or the winter coat hood. Not useful, but makes you look cool.
DO NOT TAKE THE EXTRA MEDPACKS.
Seriously, you don’t need them. Just use them whenever you need anything from here and leave the rest for everyone else. Robotics can use them to make medbots, and there’s no reason one person should need to carry around excess amounts of medical supplies. Don’t be a dick.
Chapter 2: Surgery tools
For surgery tools, you’ll need a complete set. You start out with surgery drapes, scalpel, hemostat and a cautery in the medical aid kit you started with. I like to keep all my tools in that kit, and move the sutures and gauze and such into my toolbelt, but you do you, boo.
The bare essentials are:
- Surgical Drapes
You start with these in your medkit, so there’s no need to grab these. These are a must have for starting ANY surgery, so you must have a set on you at all times. If you lose or misplace yours, you can also use bedsheets from the recovery room, or dorm cabins if you must. Bedsheets can also be worn around your neck like a cape, making you look even cooler.
- Scalpel
You’ll start with one. This is almost always the next step in your surgery, after drapes. You use these to make incisions to begin surgeries, and can also be used in place of a circular saw if for some reason you don’t have one, although it is much slower. In a pinch, it also makes a very reliable weapon for defending yourself, or to commit medical Seppuku after you dishonor medbay with your incompetence.
- Hemostat
Also called bleeders. You start with one. You’ll use these a lot to clamp things, but mostly to tend bruises and burns. You’re going to be using these the most.
- Retracters
You’ll use these for organ manipulations, brain surgeries, prosthetics, and pretty much all of the core surgeries. You don’t start with one, so make sure you print one off on the fab, or rob the surgery room for theirs.
- Circular saw
You don’t start with one, so once again, print it off or rob surgery. You need one, you’ll use it a lot for many surgeries, although if you are in a pinch, you can use a scalpel in its place. It’s much slower to use a scalpel, and they don’t always work so make sure you grab one and keep it on you. Also makes a good weapon.
- Cautery
You use these to end surgeries, whether you finished the surgery, or need to cancel the surgery midway through. You need one, and you start with one in your medical kit.
Other surgery tools:
- Blood filter
Sometimes the dude you’re working on keeps taking toxin damage and you’re not sure why. Sometimes, the Chemist rolled in entirely too drunk, and you need him sober so he can make you fucking formaldehyde. Either way, you should filter their blood. You won’t always need to do this, so just print one off whenever you do (or rob the one from surgery).
- Surgical Drill
This one is borderline useless. You’ll never use it, unless someone requests a dental implant. Just grab the one in surgery if this ever happens, nobody ever needs the drill so it is almost always there.
Chapter 3 coming soon 