Medkits???

[Myrm]

Read a few decent works on Ancient Egyptian medicine befoore it went all mystical.

Umm. All two (or is it three?)?

The text in the medical library here in Cambridge that I took out left me with the impression of there being a few more originals than that - but not by an order of magnitude. Imhotep was the core of it, presumably the copying and completeness and probably he was important enough to preserve. Again the gaps in the record issue pretty big...we see important people in Egypt don;t we....

It seems that most Egyptologists accept the fact that Egyptian "medicine" was almost entirely "magic driven" ... of no medical value at all ... for anything beyond binding up (but not otherwise treating) wounds or setting (but not otherwise treating) broken bones.
Anything disease based or internal based and you were s*****d. A lot of ancient "medical practise" was like that.

Hmm the odd medical history lecture on the subject have been more charitible than that. Im not suggesting it was brilliant, but that it was better than most people assume, the external (shall we settle on 'wounds') certainly dominated over the internal - though that didnt seem to help Tutankhamun after all. From memory the guy did say the Greeks and Romans further improved on the Egyptians but the characteristic of all the ancients was the lack of coherent passing on of the information - both within one society as power moved around which lead to decline in one society (see the Egyptians) and as one power took over another.

Of course, gather two Egyptologists in the same place and you'll find at least three opinions on any given topic :lol:
Phil

I've noticed that when they do open lectures round here, watched someone raise the 'Pharoah of the Exodus bneing MerenPtah' to someone who didnt agree and that got....heated. I think you get the same with medics as well...ancient medical scholars could be both medics and Egyptologists which means they probably disagree with themselves

Actually if you've got some suggested sources I wouldnt mind a PM to list 'em....its an area I occasionally trip into for interest and the Uni library here is pretty good at obtaining all sorts if you ask.

 

[rust]

Actually if you've got some suggested sources ...

I think this would be a good website for some interesting browsing:
http://www.mic.ki.se/Egypt.html

 

[atpollard]

Ancient Egypt would be a Traveller Iron Age civilization (TL 1) with millions of inhabitants (Pop 6+). Do your campaigns actually involve a significant amount of time spent seeking medical attention on TL 1, Pop 6 worlds? In 30 years of playing I have YET to encounter that scenario.

 

[cbrunish]

Ancient Egypt would be a Traveller Iron Age civilization (TL 1) with millions of inhabitants (Pop 6+). Do your campaigns actually involve a significant amount of time spent seeking medical attention on TL 1, Pop 6 worlds? In 30 years of playing I have YET to encounter that scenario.

What? All my campaigns involve just that!!!! :lol:

 

[aspqrz]

Ancient Egypt would be a Traveller Iron Age civilization (TL 1) with millions of inhabitants (Pop 6+). Do your campaigns actually involve a significant amount of time spent seeking medical attention on TL 1, Pop 6 worlds? In 30 years of playing I have YET to encounter that scenario.

Nope. Bronze Age, mostly ... only Iron Age from the New Kingdom (after the Hyksos rubbed their collective noses in it). Actually, there's good evidence that the early Old Kingdom was Chalcolithic (not even Bronze, only copper) ... the Pyramids were built, it seems likely, with hardened copper and stone tools :shock:

And, of course, as all of us historians know, "Iron Age" merely means "we know how to make iron" and not "it's ubiquitous."

It didn't even start to become that until the late Middle Ages (14th century, IIRC) with some technical tweaks such as waterwheel powered bellows (yes, I know China managed it many hundreds of years earlier with box bellows, but China suffered from a bad case of socal and technological stasis, so it really didn't do 'em any good :wink: )

Phil

 

[atpollard]

Nope. Bronze Age, mostly ... only Iron Age from the New Kingdom (after the Hyksos rubbed their collective noses in it). Actually, there's good evidence that the early Old Kingdom was Chalcolithic (not even Bronze, only copper) ... the Pyramids were built, it seems likely, with hardened copper and stone tools

Until they find proof of Iron in the Old Kingdom - remember that the iron using Hittites were a myth until archeological evidence was found in the 20th century.

 

[aspqrz]

Nope. Bronze Age, mostly ... only Iron Age from the New Kingdom (after the Hyksos rubbed their collective noses in it). Actually, there's good evidence that the early Old Kingdom was Chalcolithic (not even Bronze, only copper) ... the Pyramids were built, it seems likely, with hardened copper and stone tools

Until they find proof of Iron in the Old Kingdom - remember that the iron using Hittites were a myth until archeological evidence was found in the 20th century.

Well, like a good historian I did hedge my bets with the "it seems likely" in there 8)

You are exactly right, however ... which is why I did qualify my comment! :wink:

Phil

 

[Xoph]

A "medlab" running surgical procedures is not a small installation that can be packed into a few Td of crate.

Why not? Sickbays seem common on Starships? That means they should fit in a standard Stateroom when they are set up. I’m sure they pack much smaller. Beside the smallest Lab (looks like it could be used by multiple people still since a research would probably have at least one assistant but probably 2 or 3) on the Labship is only 6 dtons. The Labship entry also says that the equipment for the lab is “common and easily purchased”.

It probably requires expensive gear that might be beyond the reach of a character's starting money.

She has around Cr. 250,000 and with the cost of a cryoberth at 50,000, a TL:14 Medkit (with densitometer to 3D view of the patients body) only 8kg and Cr. 10,000, and a AutoDoc (with surgical tools) for Cr. 40,000. I don’t think a Sickbay would be that insanely priced. Any Official voices on this?

On the other hand with Dex, Edu and Int bonuses and Medic-2, who needs a human doctor? Which raises the question: if the autodoc will do, how does our wandering cyberdoc fit into the market? .

I think that the fact that the AutoDoc is TL:12 with only medic 2 and is probably programmed only for wound repair and such like rust suggested would give a real human doctor lots of work doing specialty medicine like facial rejuvenation or installing cybernetics or whatever.

It certainly requires more than one doctor: are any of the other crew medically trained? Sure, you could run a "bush doctor" travelling clinic, but a cybernetics shop is not a "side thing", IME, and any "rules" I offered would be based on that premise, so wouldn't fit what you want to permit your characters to have the option of doing.

I don't think you'd need more then one doctor, most high end extreme surgical procedures (heart surgery) right now only require two plus four nurses. A few Auto Docs would be able to assist. First off, I never said a cybernetics shop (I don’t think those really exist in traveller any more then they exist now for our limited “Cybernetics” ). She would unlikely be able to afford to carry around a supply of cybernetics. Second, I don’t think a travelling clinic of several TL (TL:14) above the planets they visit would be exactly a “bush doctor”. She’d be able to come by TL: 6 to 8 worlds and do things like consult local hospital, cure cancer, remove spots, change a NPCs identity, or install those cybernetics a ruler ordered for his mercenaries.

My questions originally were:
How much is a Sickbay or MedLab? I need rules for non-wound fixing surgeries?

Any official responses to my queries would be appreciated.

 

[Twi'lekk_Den-keeper]

I put a "medbay" on my merchants ship for .5 Mcr and 8dtons. This included an auto doc, a decent supply of medical drugs and medicines, cybernetics and all else that is needed to care for people with crippling wounds. For those people who said human doctors aren't as useful, they can get to the people needing help more readily, and they can distrubute help even if their not doing the actual work.
As for non-wound fixing surgeries, I would say yes, you do. If you fail, it's the GM's responsibility to say what went wrong and what the consequences are according to how bad the failure was.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Given the sizes of a stateroom for comparison, I reckon a clinic/dispensary, a surgery, and a recovery room / sickbay for 2 patients would take up the equivalent of 3 staterooms.

That's probably the minimum for a hospital level equipped sickbay/medlab. A regular merchant ship would probably get by with the doc using his/her stateroom as the clinic.

The medlab in Firefly, for instance, is probably about 2 staterooms worth, as a dispensary and a surgery.

So that's 0.5Mcr per stateroom block, too. Though there should be no extra life support costs for these, the same amount might be used up in supplies quite easily.

A medkit seems to be all that's required to use the Medic skill. It's been figured that it will have limited use (I'm houseruling 6 uses). Spend, say, 10 to 50 times that and you might have a fully working dispensary.

An autodoc or two would be useful to assist and monitor recovery. For such a luxury style clinic at least one steward with medic training would probably be needed too.

Based on the above conjecture, your clinic might cost:

3 staterooms = 1.5Mcr (or just convert existing ones)
Medical equipment (TL14) = 100Kcr to 500Kcr
Autodoc = 40Kcr
Drugs = lets say 100Kcr (they seem around 500-1000cr per does in TMB)
Bioscanner = 350Kcr
Densitometer = 20Kcr
Steward/Nurse = maybe 6000cr per month?

At the top end, that totals (without the stateroom cost) 910Kcr, so maybe a million creds all in. That sounds fair to me .

 

[5h4ne]

This thread has answered questions I was going to post - so thanks all!

- I'm new to Traveller and the lack of info on Medical care in general left me thinking that I was just going to roleplay it as a referee.

The suggestions given will be useful to me in making those roleplay/ situational decisions.

 

[5h4ne]

As one game system puts it:

Medical/TL3: High-speed amputation techniques with an axe

Class :lol:

Even better than page 98 of the rulebook:

"..the club remains a popular and practical weapon wherever intelligent species gather."

 

[belgan]

Q: Why is the 8kg consistent across TLs for medikits?

If you are going to say that the efficiency of the unit essentially doesn't change (e.g. give bonuses) what is the justification for the size remaining the same? Yes, there might be another piece of useless gear or two in it, but the only tangible difference listed is being able to treat augmented people with it. In the CSC the field medical kit mentions higher TLs 'increasing the odds of successful treatment' /cough bonuses but they don't materialize in the table below that for higher TL medikits.

Technology has shown that all sorts of electronic gadgetry has been getting smaller so why shouldn't it be reflected here too? Character encumbrance isn't a huge amount to fill up and 8 kg is a large chunk of 14kg (average unencumbered)...in a previous message someone said they would expect to carry several.

Trauma kits reduce in weight, why not medikits too?

Overall it seems this version of Traveller has 550 ways to kill ya, but very little information available on the ways to heal/recover.

 

[barnest2]

Nice res man
I mean good post, but seriously? nigh on three years?

 

[rust]

Q: Why is the 8kg consistent across TLs for medikits?

From my personal experience medical kits have an annoying tendency to
get bigger and heavier with improving technology, simply because there
are more and more devices for more and more situations that get inclu-
ded.

Just think of the kind of equipment used during WWII. Then add bottled
oxygen, a defibrillator, a portable EKG device. Think of the future and add
a portable EEG device and a portable cardiopulmonary bypass device.
The kit is not only not getting smaller and lighter, it continues to get big-
ger and heavier.

 

[far-trader]

Q: Why is the 8kg consistent across TLs for medikits?

From my personal experience medical kits have an annoying tendency to
get bigger and heavier with improving technology, simply because there
are more and more devices for more and more situations that get inclu-
ded.

Just think of the kind of equipment used during WWII. Then add bottled
oxygen, a defibrillator, a portable EKG device. Think of the future and add
a portable EEG device and a portable cardiopulmonary bypass device.
The kit is not only not getting smaller and lighter, it continues to get big-
ger and heavier.

So, per the statement:

"Higher-technology medikits do not give a bonus to basic treatment, but can help with more exotic problems or when treating augmented individuals."

...the Medkit is actually shrinking individual components over time (TL advancements), but filling up the space savings with more stuff (which all costs more, per the book). Contrary to both rust's experience and your interpretation

Where are Trauma Kits btw? I'm curious now

As for lighter and cheaper Medkits, I basically created one for a game* recently. I addressed the issue of reducing size by using the TL rule (for computers?) of reduce cost and/or weight by half per TL step to make a retro (TL10) Medkit (in a TL12 market). Instead of weighing 8kg it weighs just 2kg. I kept the cost the same at Cr1,500. The rationalization being (in this case) that by shopping for specific items (and paying more for them individually as well as being advanced examples that weigh less) I collected the basics of a Medkit that weighs only 2kg (being advanced examples of the basic TL10 components). So it treats most problems just as well but won't address any issues that the higher TL one would have.

* yes ref, I plan to post

EDIT: GRRR... :x <rant> I was remarking on this privately a bit ago. Don't you love how the book has the Medkit (which is the Doc Bag we're talking about) and the Medikit (a drug pump for suits)... and yes those are different words, by all of one little letter in the middle... :roll: As if that isn't bad enough, note the quote above from Core for the Medkit, see where it says "Medikit"... <sigh, even the author(s) couldn't keep their own terminology straight> Why?! Why wouldn't the writer(s) notice (I did right off just reading it) the too similar terms for different items and change one? To avoid confusion at least. Medkit for the Doc Bag and I dunno, Auto-Injector, Drugkit, Smartmed,... (off the top of my head while typing) or whatever. Something different for the danged "smart" "auto-injecting" "drug kit" for suits!? </rant>

 

[rust]

...the Medkit is actually shrinking individual components over time (TL advancements), but filling up the space savings with more stuff (which all costs more, per the book). Contrary to both rust's experience and your interpretation

Well, at least there is a very strong tendency to fill up more space than the shrinking of individual components created ... :lol:

 

[DFW]

For ship board I just say screw it and install an Autodoc. Got a headache? In ya go. Got appendicitis? In ya go. Etc.

 

[alex_greene]

Q: Why is the 8kg consistent across TLs for medikits?

From my personal experience medical kits have an annoying tendency to
get bigger and heavier with improving technology, simply because there
are more and more devices for more and more situations that get inclu-
ded.

Just think of the kind of equipment used during WWII. Then add bottled
oxygen, a defibrillator, a portable EKG device. Think of the future and add
a portable EEG device and a portable cardiopulmonary bypass device.
The kit is not only not getting smaller and lighter, it continues to get big-
ger and heavier.

Plus those drugs don't get any more compact, nor the dressings, latex gloves and all the other basic kit.

 

[far-trader]

For ship board I just say screw it and install an Autodoc. Got a headache? In ya go. Got appendicitis? In ya go. Etc.

Is it just Medics ya all got a hate on for?

Where's the calls for just kitting the ships up with Autoguns, Autopilots, Luxuries ( :roll: ) and all the rest so we don't need all the fancy military training, overpriced sophont pilots, do nothing stewards and the rest...

...I thought the point of the game was to generate characters with skills to fill the positions needed for an adventure in the guise of Travelling. All the better than human automation the game seems bent on adding goes counter to that. Not saying there shouldn't be any automation, just that it shouldn't be the first line or best option. Not by a long way. Probably just me though, the rest of you can't wait to welcome our machine overlords :shock: