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[Firehawk]

Has anyone found the medical system to be almost completely pointless? I've been having the same issue of if my Chief Medical Dwarf is busy (such as taking a two weeks off to sleep, drink, eat, break, sleep, drink, eat, etc.) no one injured gets diagnosed or treated, and thus they get infections, which 9/10 times seem to end in death.

So the solution? Switch out my Chief Medical Dwarf for someone who isn't slacking off. But then that just defeats the whole purpose of the Chief Medical Dwarf position if you constantly have to change dwarves just to get your patients diagnosed so they actually get worked on.

Just had to vent. This frustrates me to no end and is just dumb as hell.

[KrazyDocK]

I've had a few immigrants with very good "diagnostician" skills (2 high masters and 1 accomplished).  They do tend to do a good job.  I'm not sure how important skill level is with the other healthcare tasks, but with diagnosis it makes a big difference in my experience.

And it's not just the chief medical dwarf who will do the diagnosing, by the way.  All 3 of my diagnosticians will diagnose.

[Firehawk]

Really? I was under the impression that it HAD to be the Chief Medical Dwarf who did the first diagnosis on patients. Subsequent ones I hadn't heard about.

[zwei]

Really? I was under the impression that it HAD to be the Chief Medical Dwarf who did the first diagnosis on patients. Subsequent ones I hadn't heard about.

Chief medical dwarf is just administrator and real medical work can be done by anyone.

[WCG]

I've got my first injured - instead of dead - dwarf, and he's really a mess: both arms and legs broken, broken hip, heart damaged, gut damaged, pancreas damaged, still bleeding profusely. (A goblin warparty emptied their quivers into him. It's amazing he survived it.) I took my chief medical dwarf and a "nurse" off all other duties, and they seem to get around to their patient eventually.

They're never in any big hurry about it. And no other dwarf with medical skills has done anything at all. Medical care seems to be a really low priority, even compared to just standing around doing nothing.

And as I say, the patient is still bleeding heavily. I don't know if my medical team is supposed to do something about that or not. No one ever took soap into the hospital - it's still sitting in the stockpile where it was put immediately after being made - so I suppose my dwarf will die of infection, anyway, even if he doesn't bleed out.

I really like the hospital improvements, but I think they still need some work.

[Lord Darkstar]

He has to be diagnosed before they will do anything about stopping the bleeding.

I have found hospitals work best when you have several well skilled diagnosis skilled health care workers. Then dwarves tend to be handled in a fairly quick matter. When it is just one doctor, things tend to take a very long time to get handled. However, once a dwarf is in the hospital, I've never seen them die of anything BUT infection. No matter how many seasons they laid around bleeding, waiting on a doctor to decide to finally patch them up.

[ledgekindred]

The medical system does work very well if you have skilled dwarves. My current fort has a mediocre diagnostician but a couple of my slackers are professional or better surgeons, wound dressers and bone setters. Once the original diagnosis happens I've only lost one dwarf to infection, and thtat was because he was seriously busted up to begin with.  A half dozen others have got up off the table and back to work pretty quickly. The key is to leave the medical labors on for any dwarf that has a reasonable skill at them, and only those skills. One or another will get to any injured and handle it. Also make sure you have containers in your hospital for the medical staff to store equipment. They wont go get it from elsewhere. As long as you have it all in place I see my diagnostician walk in, clean and diagnose the patient, the surgeon comes in and does whatever it is that he does, he gets stitched up, wrapped up and splinted if necessary and off he goes.

Edit - also make sure you build a table next to each bed. Your surgeon will need to move an injured dwarf to a table pre surgery and it only seems to be reliable if the table is immediately adjacent.

[shibdib]

I dont mind idlers so I have doctors who just wander around and do nothing besides doctor stuff. So dwarves are in and out of my hospitals pretty quickly

[BaronBalloon]

actually, my chief medical dwarf went out of the hospital to grab thread from a cloth stockpile. but now he is back to filling ponds. i dont know why he wont finish the job, the next item on the list is more sutures, youd think he could figure out how to do the same thing a second time if he could do it at all

[Hans Lemurson]

Remove all of the non-medical duties of your dedicated medical staff.

[gtmattz]

Remove all of the non-medical duties of your dedicated medical staff.

Unfortunately, you cant remove pond filling or taking crap to the trade depot (and a few other things i think?) and it always seems like my medical dwarves want to do anything but work on the wounded.  As a result of my frustration brought on by multiple attempts at really getting a grasp on the medical system, my hostpital now conisists of a series of beds built on platforms suspended over the magma sea, and when a dwarf becomes injured enough to be bedridden the lever is pulled and his bed is dropped, ending his misery and any possible misery at the hands of inept 'docs'.  Maybe a little extreme, but so far it has taken care of the injured dwarf problem (for the most part).

[darkflagrance]

Are you certain the pond this is not a bug where a healthcare dwarf gets stuck trying to clean a wound to plaster it? I've had to use the plaster work-around once (when the dwarves get stuck filling the bucket to clean wound, forbid all buckets and then unforbid one that was just used for water).

Since I play Fortress Defense Mod, I need to maintain an active military, and they always come home with multiple broken limbs. I've been using novice diagnosticians and other kinds of doctors, and my CMD is usually the first Animal Dissector migrant I see, but so far I've had no problems. I've got four or so guys with all the health labors enabled without regard for skill level, and tons of thread, cloth, splints, and buckets. I've had surgery and even traction bench-use go off without hitches (the traction bench must also be bed-adjacent). Other than a member of the starting seven who died in the hospital of infection and four brain-damaged guys taking up space, my healthcare system seems to take care of my army, even though I have also noticed my CMDs tend to slack off a lot.

[BaronBalloon]

nah, its actual pond duty, because i am on a freezing map i am creating ice above ground by dumping buckets of water

[BaronBalloon]

i assigned another dwarf to do the chief doctors work and he went to do it immediately. :S

[Firehawk]

I also am having an issue with dwarves getting like broken/torn ears which they will not go to the hospital for, which eventually seem to get infected and kill them.

I'm starting to think the danger rooms just aren't worth the hassle, nor is the medical system.