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[daggaz]

I see this in a lot of starter builds, but am starting to wonder, is it really necessary?  Most often its a few points in diagnostics, and one point each in the other !!medical sciences!!, but that just seems like a waste to me.  I almost always get another diagnostics type dwarf in among my migrants, and far as I can tell, having only novice ranks is a complete waste except for certain skills where it opens a specific menu.   Add this in with the fact that enemies are fairly easy to hold off in the early years, and it just starts to feel.. meh.

So far Ive been trying out things like mixing my doc with my broker build, but most of the time the dumb bastard ends up becoming an accomplished flower picker/wood chopper, or otherwise sitting on his hands.  Of course, I have a horrible time of constantly starting a new game, and as of yet have not witnessed a full on siege. 

So I ask you, bring a doctor on embark, or just keep your extra (and actually useful) dwarf out of harms way until the real McCoy comes along?

[Broseph Stalin]

All of my doctors are either migrants or conscripts, I never put any points into the medical skills. I have a pretty high rate of infection but that's probably also because by the time my forts big enough to worry about things like soap non-fatal injuries aren't very common.

[Loud Whispers]

The only reason I could see for starting with a doctor is:

*Megaproject/!!SCIENCE!!;
*Aesthetics/Self imposed rules.

[krisslanza]

You might want a doctor if you're embarking in a particularly dangerous embark. Otherwise it's just insurance incase you just get migrants with terrible skills.

[Loud Whispers]

You might want a doctor if you're embarking in a particularly dangerous embark. Otherwise it's just insurance incase you just get migrants with terrible skills.

But if you need a doctor early on, you're pretty much already screwed.

[ledgekindred]

I embark with a dwarf with Diagnostician and Engineering skills pumped up.   I figure, there's not that much difference between building a spear trap and fixing a dwarf's heart, right?

From what the forums and wiki seem to have gathered, Diagnostics is one of the the most important medical skills, as a poorly-trained diagnostician can make the wrong diagnosis, which can end up with dwarves dying.  The other skills, surgery, bone setting, etc, are apparently more a matter of how quickly and cleanly they happen as opposed to how effectively.

I also have lousy luck ever getting diagnosticians immigrating.

[King DZA]

The only time I ever invest in medical skills when I give my craftdwarf suturing.

[krisslanza]

You might want a doctor if you're embarking in a particularly dangerous embark. Otherwise it's just insurance incase you just get migrants with terrible skills.

But if you need a doctor early on, you're pretty much already screwed.

Debatable. Out of my last few embarks, I haven't ever gotten any migrants with any medical skills...

[melphel]

Even though I probably don't need one, I embark with a doctor.  Other skills are fairly easy to train on the job, but there tends to be a shortage of patients, so doctors can't just train up from nothing the way a miner or a mason could.  I'd rather waste the couple points on a doctor than have to resort to making Urist McButcher a makeshift surgeon.

Speaking of which, does anyone have a good way to train doctors?  Giving random dorfs wounds without killing them outright seems fairly hard.

[Sphalerite]

I always start with one of my dwarves dedicated to medical skills.  Admittedly, this may be a waste of a starting position as I've almost never needed a doctor within the first year, and he mostly ends up being a hauler till I get a hospital built.  It does have the advantage of letting me get a good look at everyone's personality before picking who gets to be the doctor.

[Loud Whispers]

Even though I probably don't need one, I embark with a doctor.  Other skills are fairly easy to train on the job, but there tends to be a shortage of patients, so doctors can't just train up from nothing the way a miner or a mason could.  I'd rather waste the couple points on a doctor than have to resort to making Urist McButcher a makeshift surgeon.

Speaking of which, does anyone have a good way to train doctors?  Giving random dorfs wounds without killing them outright seems fairly hard.

1, 2~ drop

[Vharuck]

Even though I probably don't need one, I embark with a doctor.  Other skills are fairly easy to train on the job, but there tends to be a shortage of patients, so doctors can't just train up from nothing the way a miner or a mason could.  I'd rather waste the couple points on a doctor than have to resort to making Urist McButcher a makeshift surgeon.

Speaking of which, does anyone have a good way to train doctors?  Giving random dorfs wounds without killing them outright seems fairly hard.

I need help with this as well.  After two Forgotten Beasts, I realized all injuries my soldiers sustained were either negligible or fatal, so my doctor had nobody to practice on.  I tried to have a dwarf deconstruct a tile beneath himself to fall one z-level, but it turned out that it was an up stair which supported a down stair above.  The deconstructor died immediately, another dwarf suffocated a few seconds later, and a third died before reaching the hospital.

I am apparently terrible at "controlled accidents."  What do you guys do?

[Loud Whispers]

Use a retractable bridge

[melphel]

How far do you drop them, and how bad are their injuries?  I'm afraid I might blow off their limbs and have them bleed out.

I was thinking of making a room separated with an impassable channel in the middle.  Have victims future patients stand on one side and then collapse a constructed wall into the other side, letting the cave in dust hit them.  ...Reading that, it sounds a lot more dangerous than it did in my head.

[Broseph Stalin]

Even though I probably don't need one, I embark with a doctor.  Other skills are fairly easy to train on the job, but there tends to be a shortage of patients, so doctors can't just train up from nothing the way a miner or a mason could.  I'd rather waste the couple points on a doctor than have to resort to making Urist McButcher a makeshift surgeon.

Speaking of which, does anyone have a good way to train doctors?  Giving random dorfs wounds without killing them outright seems fairly hard.

Assign them full armor except gauntlets and place them in a danger room, eventually they'll shatter a finger and they might become a little badass at the same time.