Core Rulebook Crew Question 1 Medics

[snrdg121408]

Evening all,

During the process of creating a Core Rulebook Crew calculator I have some small issues with the Crew Requirements table p. 113 (corrected table).

My first issue is that one medic is only required for every 120 passengers under the headings of Average and Full.

Who patches up the crew when they are injuried?

Does the crew count as passengers when determining the number of medics?

CT requires a minimum of 1 medic on hulls greater than 100 dTons in addition of the 1 to 120 or fraction of passengers. MT/TNE/T4 requires 1 medic per 120 crew and passengers onboard and 1 medic per 20 low berth passengers. In both cases fraction are dropped.

Does the medic requirement seem odd to anyone else?

As a replacement I'd like to recommend the following:

1 medic per 120 crew and passengers carried
1 medic per 20 low passengers.

 

[rust]

I do not really see a need for 1 medic per 20 low berth passengers,
unless they have to be treated in a hurry.

Under normal circumstances low berth passengers are probably put
into the low berths before the other passengers board the ship and
are taken out of the low berths after the other passengers have left
the ship, so the medic can take his time and has no other patients
to care for.

Well, and during the flight the medic cannot do much regarding the
low berth passengers, they are a kind of "freeze and forget until ar-
rival" cargo, I think.

 

[GypsyComet]

The Medic requirement is just that, a Requirement. If you run a large passenger liner, you MUST have a Medic. Below that, the Medic is optional. REALLY useful, but optional.

Similarly, if you are running low passengers between established worlds, there will likely be Medics at both ends. One old article presented the model of Low Berth travel as basically shipping yourself as Freight. Some Port freezes you and arranges to ship you in the right direction, presuming you've set up the right payments in advance. You stay in your Low Pod the whole time, handed off from ship to ship until either your travel bond runs out or you arrive at your destination. The Pod is capable of self maintenance for short periods, but all ships and ports with Cold facilities have the plug-in wall assembly to keep the pod powered for the longer term. So your pod gets unplugged from the freezing Med Bay at the port, wheeled out to the first ship and plugged in there. At the next port they unplug you and hand you off to either the port or another ship, depending on timing. The ships themselves just deal in anonymous pods, just like freight.

If the ship wants to deal with the occupant directly, a Medic would be a good idea, yes. Same applies to frontier situations where the port either doesn't exist or doesn't have the right equipment to handle the popsicle traffic.

 

[Galadrion]

I can see some justification for requiring medics for low passengers, and probably more of them than more mobile patients need. Cold sleep hibernation is pretty much a medical procedure, and inherently fairly risky - it would compare with invasive and/or major surgery, in terms of mortality. I'd say the crew is getting off fairly lightly if it only takes one medic to cope with twenty corpsicles in a timely manner.

But the "live" ones aren't going to need anywhere near that much medical care - typical medical needs on a modern-society basis tend to run around one medical consultation per person per eight months, I believe. Assuming about eight passengers/crew per trip (two weeks) for a typical free trader, that's going to mean around one consultation between a medic and a "live" one every other trip, on average. On that basis, free traders will carry medics the same way our drivers carry insurance - this is something we have to have, just in case, for liability reasons. Not because we really expect to need it.

Of course, on ships with larger crews and passenger manifests, a medic may indeed become more practical; by the time you get up to needing more than one medic (about 180 passenger/crew, I believe), you could expect ten or eleven medical cases on a normal jump. (I'd expect probably one truly serious incident every three to four trips - something requiring immediate surgery in order to correct. Most shipboard consults are going to result in the equivalent of "Take two aspirin and call me when you wake up tomorrow.")

 

[snrdg121408]

Evening Galadrion, GypsyComet, and rust,

Thank-you for the replies and the reasons why the medic should be left alone, especially for the low berth passengers.

However, does the crew count as passengers or not in Mongoose for calculating the number of medics?

 

[alex_greene]

I'd say it counts. The medic's roile extends to the welfare of the crew as much as to the welfare of the passengers.

And even if the ship has no passengers, just crew and cargo, there's always a need for a medic around to patch up the crew, particularly if they are in the habit of getting into as many hair raising scrapes as the player characters.

 

[Galadrion]

I'd agree with Alex on this point; even if there are no paying passengers involved, the crew is almost certainly going to need a medic. Think about it: the crew is going to be involved in moving cargo around (I've done this professionally; believe me, you're going to need medical personnel), probably engaged in starport brawls, possibly dealing with various port diseases, and so on and so forth. Admittedly, if there are no paying passengers, the crew isn't going to have the same liability, but it would still be prudent to have some professional assistance. And, to be honest, the crew is more likely to need medical services than most passengers; the crew, after all, is involved in most of the heavy lifting aboard.

 

[alex_greene]

An example of the sort of situation where a mishap can require a medic's attention. Quite apart from having to treat an injury sustained, say, by something heavy falling over and crushing a crewman's leg, what if the cargo itself is inadvertently dangerous?

An example: transporting some fruits in bulk cargo to a world Jump-1 away on a routine cargo trade haul, the crew don't realise that some of the fruit in one of the crates harbours eggs of a species of vicious, stinging insect analogous to scorpions, with a lethal toxic sting. They don't notice, until whilst handling the cargo one of the crewmen gets stung by one of the critters which hatched in transit and escaped the confines of the crate.

This is an instant adventure, requiring a medic's attention: first, to establish what sort of creature inflicted the wound (which requires tracking down the critters and capturing at least one alive), extracting and analysing the poison and fabricating an antitoxin (if possible) and finally, treating the crewman (again, if possible - otherwise the crewman will have to go into cold sleep until he can be got to a hospital at a high enough TL to treat the toxin).

In addition to the Medic skill, a strong dose of Science skill would have to be available to analyse the creature and identify the type of toxin used.

Now a Medical computer, even one with Intellect and Medic skill, can do many wondrous things - but not even a medicomp or medical bot can come up with a new solution to a problem such as the above. The bot might have the requisite raw chemicals available to synthesise a viable antitoxin, or at least something to keep the patient alive temporarily, but no bot or computer can create something new, like a new antitoxin: that still requires a human Medic to direct the bot or chemical synthesiser and program the antitoxin formula into it.

Same thing if it was a disease infecting the crew which had never been encountered before, and for which the bot had no data in its medical library. The development of a vaccine or cure still depends on a human making the decisions - including the decision to have the ship quarantined, which decision legally overrides all other crew responsibilities, even those of her Captain.

So seriously, ships really do need medics who are as up to date with their Medic and Science skills as they can get.

 

[lucasdigital]

Some valid points and interesting ideas, although the requirement rule for medical staff is reasonable. Traveller was never intended to be totally realistic, otherwise you'd have a separate rulebook just for crewing requirements. In fact...here it is:

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=1620#toc

;-)

This book gives you a good framework for understanding how maritime crewing is assessed and regulated. Medics are not standard, even on large tankers.

 

[rust]

In my setting a crew does not need a dedicated medic, who would have
nothing to do most of the time, but at least one crew member has to
have some medical skill and doubles as the ship's medic when neces-
sary. For this he earns a slightly higher monthly wage.

 

[lucasdigital]

In my setting a crew does not need a dedicated medic, who would have
nothing to do most of the time, but at least one crew member has to
have some medical skill and doubles as the ship's medic when neces-
sary. For this he earns a slightly higher monthly wage.

My thinking exactly. I always felt that any gunners on the crew would take on 'assistant' positions for another, more routine task. This multi-discipline approach should be accounted for in their salary, and for me better reflected a modern approach to ship crewing.

 

[snrdg121408]

Morning PDT alex_greene, Galadrion, lucasdigital, and rust,

Thank you all for the replies to my medic question and lucasdigital for the maritime crew link.

While digging around for a book I found and pulled out my copy of FFE 001 Books 0-8 The Classic Books which brought to light a small error in the first source I cited in my original post. Sorry about that Chief.

I referenced Little Black Book (LBB) 2 Starships, copyright 1977 7th printing not CT: Book 2 Starships copyright 1977,1981 6th printing as indicated in my original post. Here are the two requirements

LBB 2 p. 16 states "Each starship of greater than 100 dtons hull mass displacement requires a medic aboard. Starships carrying more than 120 passengers require 1 meic for each 120 passengers or fraction thereof."

CT: Book 2 p. 16 states "Each starship of 200 tons or must have a medic (medic-1 skill or better). In addition, there must be at least 1 medic per 120 passengers carried. If there is more than 1 medic, the most skilled is designated ship's doctor and draws 10% more pay. Non-starships and small craft do not require medics."

Both alex_greene's and Galadrion's comments and examples are similar to my reasoning for having a minimum of 1 medic or at least 1 party member cross-trained as a medic.

Again my thanks to lucasdigital for the maritime crew reference link and additional information that medic are not stanard on large tankers in the civilian community. Hopefully one of the crew has cross-trained as a medic. Vessels under contract to the USN and USN non-yard craft at minimum have a corpsman, aka medic. All the boats, aka submarines, I served on had a corpsman. In the case of the USN, or at least in theory, each sailor has basic first aid training.

rust provided and is supported by lucasdigital a solution that is also in line with my thinking plus he added the increased pay for cross-training. Onboard the boats I served on most of the corpsman stood watches somewhere just to keep from getting bored. Most of the time, at least the ones I served with, liked to stand sonar or helm watches, but they had a choice.

Again thanks for the replies and additional information sources.

 

[atpollard]

I'd agree with Alex on this point; even if there are no paying passengers involved, the crew is almost certainly going to need a medic.

I would suggest that a six man crew would benefit from one (or more) crewman having some medical skill, but that hiring a full-time EMT or Trauma Tech to be constantly ready 'just in case' seems overkill.

At 100+ crewmembers and/or passengers, I agree that a full time 'Medic' is appropriate, but at the Free Trader/Fat Trader player scale, it is a secondary skill hiring decision.

 

[The Chef]

most companies over a certain number of staff require a first aider. i would imagine there are first aiders on most longer term ocean going vessels with a means of getting passangers/crew off to a nearby hospital should a medical emergency happen.

however, given the time frames involved in space travel , ie 7 days in jump, time in and out of the system, medical emergencies would be much more accute. i would see medics even just basic medical knowledge being a highly important skill. even if the medic does something else primarily on board ship. so i would say someone on board would know enough not just to be able to do cpr, which anyone can learn, but would have knowledge of drug administration, injections (which require courses above and beyond the standard first aider) and probably more space bound problems such as rad exposure or hypothermia.

Chef.

 

[CosmicGamer]

I feel that one of the crew with the appropriate high characteristic and a computer running an expert medic program would be adequate for most small ships.

TL 12 Computer 3 1,000cr
TL 11 Rating 1 Intelligent interface 100cr
TL 12 Rating 2 Expert Medic 10,000cr

Many variations are possible.

 

[alex_greene]

In the article I sent to Mongoose, I posited that a ship's designated medic would have plenty to do even during downtime.

For instance, he would be in charge of ensuring that the crew get the right balance of vitamins and mineral supplements to stay healthy, and probably work out an exercise and fitness training regime with the bridge crew, keeping them in trim with a couple of hours' scheduled cardio daily during Jump. If the crew need inoculations against a known disease on the destination world, the medic has to be on hand to provide them.

Female, and some male, crewmembers might want to have routine six monthly contraceptive shots to prevent there being an occurrence of pitter pattering of little vacc suit boots on the deck. And everyone who has an implant of some sort, combat implants in particular, needs to have that implant checked regularly for signs of rejection.

If there's a bug going around and the medic doesn't want it getting off the ship, she can order the quarantine of the ship, or just individual crewmen who are infected. And of course, she has the onerous responsibility of drafting out the death certificates to be sent back home for crew and passengers who never made it out of cold sleep, or who got killed in the line of duty.

The job of a medic never ends.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello atpollard,

My thanks for adding your input to my questions over the years and on the various Traveller forums/boards.

Hiring a full-time EMT or Trauma Tech that is cross-trained in other ship board duties doesn't seem to be any different than say a full time Engineer cross-trained as a medic, EMT, or Trauma Tech. Now hiring a full time Medic, EMT, or Trauma Tech in addition to the 6 crew members is probably a bit much even for me.

I agree that at a certain point a dedicated medic is required, which in CT and Core Rulebook is 120 passengers, which I'll include the crew in the passenger count. I also agree that as long as at least one crew member has a secondary skill set of medic then the need is covered.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello The Chef,

Thank you for the comments and details concerning my medics question. I feel that they also support the requirement for at least 1 crew member with a medic skill set if not a dedicated medic for less than 120 passengers and crew.

 

[snrdg121408]

Howdy CosmicGamer

Another good suggestion on how to handle the medic requirement for less than 120 passengers and crew. During several different gaming sessions I was a member of a crew that used a similar method. WIth the exception of two sessions this method worked very well. The GMs, really evil people in my book :wink:, decided that either the computer went off line or didn't have the right data. In one session my character was nearly terminated and in the other the character now has green skin.
After the sessions I asked them if having a medic or someone with medic skills would have made a difference. The GMs both said yes.

Thanks for replying

 

[alex_greene]

???

What, am I chopped liver here?