Guide to Diagnosis

The Problem

So you want to be a Doctor. Great. You have your trusty health analyzer and your somewhat less trusty scalpel, drapes and hemostat. A guy walks in, he's got 90 BRUTE. You tend his wounds. He dies anyway. Whatever could have happened? A lot of things, and a basic health analyzer reveals about half of them at best. This guide should help you reveal the other half.

Diagnosis: Or, How Not To Be A Terrible Doctor Who Sucks

Now, being a terrible doctor who sucks is bad, most would agree. So to not be a TDWS, you need to know these three basic facts:

1. The analyzer is good but it's not the end-all be-all.
2. You always have the capacity to fix almost any problem.
3. You do not always have the knowledge to fix almost any problem.

Today, we learn the first of the two things you need to fix almost any problem, which is knowing thy enemy, for knowing is half the battle. (The other half is, traditionally, red and blue lasers).

Your Tools:

Your diagnostic implements are your first defense against angry nerds in ghost chat. They will typically consist of:

Your Eyeballs

You get these for free, and thereby you may as well use them. The most powerful function of your eyeballs is their ability to examine people. You will use this a lot. Empaths are especially good at examining people, and will receive extra information.

Examining someone reveals:

1. If they're dead ("limp and unresponsive", if you're a clown or the person has tinted shades and is buckled to a wheelchair, they'll appear to be sleeping instead)
2. If they're sleeping or in hard-crit ("isn't responding to anything")
3. Any embedded objects, like glass shards, thrown knives, or metal shrapnel.
4. If they're in soft-crit ("barely concious")
5. Levels of BRUTE ("bruise", "dent") and BURN ("burn", "char") (<25 is "minor", <50 is "moderate", 50+ is "severe")
6. Their apparent BLOOD volume, levels as follows. If the person you're examining has the Albino skin tone, they look as if they have an additive 25% less BLOOD than they actually do.:
   1. 100-85%: nothing
   2. 85-70%: "pale skin"
   3. 70-40%: "pale death"
   4. <40%: "crushed juice pouch"
7. BLEEDING limbs
8. If they're husked ("grotesque husk")
9. Empathy Specific Information (There's a lot of this, Empath rules.):
   1. If they're in combat mode ("on guard")
   2. If they have at least 10 OXY ("winded")
   3. If they have at least 10 TOX ("sickly")
   4. If they have low sanity ("distressed")
   5. If they're blind ("staring off into space")
   6. If they're deaf ("not responding to noises")
   7. If they're hyperthermic ("flushed and wheezing")
   8. If they're hypothermic ("shivering")
   9. If they're evil ("nothing but darkness")

Penlight

The penlight is a staple of both real world and fictional diagnostic medicine. This, strictly speaking, doesn't have to be a penlight, as any flashlight that has a high enough light power stat works, but I recommend using a UV paramedic penlight because they're cheap to print and can be used to treat BURN WOUND infections. Using a penlight on different areas of the body provides different information.

Using a penlight on a patient's eyes tells you:

1. If they're blind, dead, or have welding protective eyes ("don't react")
2. If they have at least 20 brain damage ("contract unevenly")
3. If they have X-ray vision ("eerie glow")
4. If they're druggy or in a hypnotic trance ("entirely unfocused")
5. If they're stoned ("wide, lazy, and bloodshot")
6. Their eye type, based on what kind of pupils they have.
7. If they have an active (ie. causes TOX) romerol tumor ("fibrous black tendrils")

Using a penlight on a patient's mouth tells you:

1. All their mouth organs
2. If they have any toothpills, and if so, how many
3. If they have at least 20 OXY ("appear blue")
4. If their BLOOD volume is between 85% and 70%. ("returns slowly")
5. If their BLOOD volume is below 70%. ("does not return")

Stethoscope

The stethoscope is A. very useful and B. snazzy and fits on your neck slot. Thereby I see no reason to ever not wear a stethoscope unless you use a MODlink. The part of the body you use the stethoscope on determines the info it gives you.

Using a stethoscope on a patient's chest tells you:

1. If they're dead, have no lungs, don't need to breathe, are faking death, or suffocating ("not breathing!")
2. If their lungs have at least 10 damage ("hear fluid")
3. If they have at least 10 OXY ("breathing heavily")
4. The kind of lungs they have, via the sound of their breaths.
5. If they're dead or their heart stopped or they have none ("don't hear")
6. If they have more than 10 heart damage or less than 70% BLOOD volume ("weak heartbeat")
7. If they're having a heart attack ("rapid, irregular")
8. The kind of heart they have, via the sound of their heartbeats.

Using a stethoscope on a patent's groin tells you:

1. If they have no liver ("cant feel where liver would be")
2. If they have no appendix ("cant feel where appendix would be")
3. If they have more than 10 liver damage ("liver feels firm")
4. If they have more than 10 appendix damage and are conscious (they scream in pain)

Using a stethoscope on a patient's limb or head tells you:

1. If they have no heart, a stopped heart, <70% BLOOD volume, or are dead ("can't find a pulse")
2. If they're having a heart attack ("irregular")
3. If they have at least 10 heart damage ("weak")
4. If they have between 85% and 70% BLOOD volume ("thready")

The Hammer Thing

Yes, you can do the hammer thing. Courtroom gavels, the hammer null rods, and most importantly the cheap and printable Reflex Hammer all work for this. Use the reflex hammer, it's cheap. Buckle a living person to a chair or bed, target a leg, and right click them with the hammer with combat mode off.

Data is as follows:

1. Brain damage less than mild traumas threshold ("sharply")
2. Brain damage less than severe traumas threshold ("after a moment")
3. Brain damage over severe traumas threshold ("weakly")

Tips

1. Using these tools to examine cursed organs created by Heretic sacrifice is a bad idea, by which I mean:
   1. Listening to lungs which whisper secrets beyond the ken of man and nature will strike you temporarily deaf and also beat your mood over the head with a baseball bat.
   2. Listening to a heart that beats with the sound of the shattering panes of glass between the realities will cause your blood to spray forcefully from your ears, necessitating medical attention.
   3. Using a penlight to look at eyes which gaze into the primordial nothing from which all something is derived will strike you blind.
2. Pressing a metal disk to the chest of a guy who's heart is an arc flash hazard and emitting visible electrical bolts is also a bad idea, by which I mean that using a stethoscope on a guy with an active voltaic combat cyberheart will horribly electrocute you.