I thought out a long time ago the various skills needed for the
health care careers. I've been keeping them to myself since
TDR went tango uniform.
Some comments:
- -the ranking scheme is kind of silly, one could be a "doctor"
by rank, without having the necessary prerequisites, IMO, to be a
functional physician. I would dump promotion role, and
instead propose titles based upon skills.
- -the skills I thought of parallel the TNE's, which makes sense,
the skills needed to function as a medical provider are pretty easily
divided to a point.
The Skills:
- -Medicine: the ability to take a history, perform a physical, make
a diagnosis, and prescribe therapy
- -Surgery: The technical skills needed to perform surgical procedures
- -Resuscitation: The skills needed to recognize and restore dysfunctions
in airway, breathing, circulation, and cerebral function
- -Pharmacology: drugs and toxicology
These are the skills that I feel are unique to health care, but are
generalizable enough to be specific skills.
- -Specialization: a skill designated by the player to reflect a
health care speciality. It's up to the player and the ref to
determine the situations were the skill would act as a DM.
As an example a specialization of "infectious disease" might
allow the character to identify the plague that blights the
planet he is on.
"resuscitation" is a more descriptive title then "trauma ops",
as medical emergencies (e.g. CPR) require the same initial resuscitation
skills as traumatic injuries. It also gives a place for lay folk to place
their skill points, a resuscitation-1 would kind of be the equivalent
of an EMT-intermediate. Some one who could give first aid, start IVs,
and do other limited life saving things.
Actually, I would think that all military (including scouts) would
have a resuscitation-0 to represent "buddy aid" skills.
Some job titles based on skills:
paramedic: medicine-1, resuscitation-2
nurse: medicine-1, pharmacology-1,resucitation-1,specialization
(nursing care)-1
intern: medicine-3 and surgery-1 (medical 'tern) _or_
medicine-2 and surgery-2 (surgery 'tern) plus
resuscitation-1,pharmacology-1,biology-1,chemistry-1,genetics-1
internist: as for medical intern, except medicine-4 plus specialization-2
(e.g. cardiology), pharmacology-2
general surgeon: as for intern, except medicine-3, surgery-4
for playability sake I don't know how complex you would want to make
this skill cascade. I think this presents a reasonable balance.
It will also be interesting to see how GDW will handle wound healing
and illness, given that they've gone to the trouble of creating this
cascade. Space borne diseases perhaps?
Finally, for those hung up on giving people ranks, this is roughly
how things work today.
Doctors Nurses Prehospital Care
E-1 premed nursing student Emergency Medical Tech-Basic
E-4 pond scum Licensed Practical EMT-Intermediate
E-7 Paramedic
O-1 med student Registered Nurse EMS Lieutenant
O-2 Staff Nurse
O-3 Intern Charge Nurse EMS Captain
O-4 Resident Head Nurse/Nurse Specialist
O-5 Staff
O-6 Chief Director of Nursing Services
that's a rough approximation. Chief is the head of particular service,
like "Chief of the Internal Medicine Service". Above that position is
Director of Medical Services.
ttfn,
eric