Medicine and Surgery

by **Orion Michaels** on August 11th, 2012, 2:25 pm

I just want to confirm these two are completely different, but likely intertwined skills. I'd like to have Orion become a skilled surgeon, but I didn't even think to give him starting SP in it with it not being on the list, and I feel a little dumb for that.

So if they are indeed separate skills, does anyone have any recommendations on how/where I can have Orion gain proficiency in it? I've been reading around and I'm not sure if there are any places I could do some flashback threads to learn in.

Thanks for anyone that takes their time to help! I appreciate it.

by **Eridanus** on August 11th, 2012, 2:57 pm

Hi, I believe they are one and the same. You just need to be a higher skilled medicine man to be able to perform surgery; same goes for RL. You dont expect the GP to do a double bypass, that's for heart surgeons.

This is by no means the authority, but hopeully it can provide a rough guide on medicine http://www.mizahar.com/forums/topic12286.html

Best place to learn it is of course, the Opal Order in Mura.

by **Verilian** on August 12th, 2012, 4:27 pm

Surgery is not on the official skill list, I think, but not everything is. I think if you were expert or higher in medicine, a storyteller would allow you to perform surgery. I often award surgery xp, but it is always coupled with equal or greater points in medicine. So if you say... If you had to clean a wound, then surgically remove a broken arrow head, then stitch it up I would probably award you 2-3 points in medicine, and 1-2 points in surgery.

by **Orion Michaels** on August 13th, 2012, 12:31 pm

So in the end, the determination may come down to the DS I'm working with? It's safe to say that a prereq for being able to perform a legit surgery is a 51 in medicine, it seems. This is something I'd selfishly like an official ruling on. If I obtain the appropriate level of skill in medicine, am I able to perform medical procedures under some DS's, but for instance, if I came to Ravok, Verilian, would I suddenly become much more limited in relation to skill points I hold in surgery?

As long as there is consistency, I'll be happy. To be honest, Verilian's way makes more sense to me, needed to have a certain level of medical knowledge to become a surgeon. Along the same lines as what Eridanus said, a master of diagnosing any sort of illness or injury likely wouldn't have have the skills to perform a surgery to remedy it. It's a different skill set. On the same hand, a master surgeon wouldn't be the one diagnosing the problem, he'd be fixing it using what he learned from other's examinations. While he still needs to be capable at medicine, they aren't totally the same.

Of course, maybe a surgeon would just have a lot of lore related to it? Or maybe I'm way off line and don't know what I'm talking about. |:)

Anymore thoughts?

by **Gossamer** on August 13th, 2012, 3:27 pm

Surgery is definitely part of medicine. If a DS is awarding surgery points, they should be applied to medicine. So if someone is preforming surgery, they should get Medicine XP and Surgical Lores.

There's no determination by a DS on this one. You can't keep someone alive during surgery if you don't know medicine. It makes ZERO sense to separate the two. If you can't stitch them back up etc... you can't keep the wound from being infected.

Also, truth be told, there's not much in this society that can survive a surgical approach and live unless you have a gnosis to counteract infection etc.

by **Orion Michaels** on August 13th, 2012, 3:33 pm

Thanks a bunch! Just the sort of answer I've been looking for.

I might have to look into getting a gnosis for Orion, then. I've been doing some research into early surgical procedures, and yikes. I don't have any intention of trying to do brain surgery or something, but dealing with cuts, gashes, arrows and such seemed to be a possibility!

Thanks to everyone else for their answers as well.