My qualifications and training are hard to translate into what this world uses, but I’ll do my best. Sorry this isn't the best organised letter out there, but I didn't want to waste paper by re-writing this to death.
Writing out everything I can do would take a very long time and would be pretty hard to do exhaustively, if you wanted it broken down to skill by skill. Here’s a basic rundown of my education:
Twelve years of standard education in my country - maths, literature, science, history, etc.
After that, I when to university to study Biomedicine for three years, which I completed with an additional Honours year. Biomed is all about health, medicine, biomedical research. A big part of my focus was physiology. Hard to summarise, but I did well enough to get a guaranteed spot in a graduate course, and for a while I intended go into medicine and figured out I was going to specialise in surgery. Instead I decided to go into veterinary medicine and focus on animals rather than humans. My doctorate was an additional four years of study, on top of the four years of Biomed. Granted the physiology and a lot of stuff between people and animals is different, but it’s not like I’ve forgotten biomed, and veterinary medicine requires being knowledgeable in a lot of different areas, whereas doctors for people might only specialise in a particular field.
For the last five years I’ve been working as veterinarian, and doing some supplementary courses to expand my skills and expertise. Truthfully, I find university academia a bit shit and tiring and a pain in my backside, and I was bloody glad when I was done with it. The reality is, when you expand on the theory you can expand the practical side of stuff and use it to help people and creatures.
Cadavers are traditionally used to help medical students learn anatomy and practice techniques. Here I’d look at using them for perfecting surgical techniques and surgeries I’ve not done before, and figuring out if new equipment will do the job. Practicing and figuring all that out on cadavers would be a lot better than trialling it on living patients whose lives need saving.
I’m still learning about the local diseases, but I’m going to assume that yes, there are things I haven’t seen here before. Even if there aren’t different sicknesses to my world, it’s not like we know about all the diseases there, either. Since this place has dragons, I don’t know, maybe there’s dragon pox. I’ve seen some of the native treatments, and there’s a mix of stuff that is known to be useless at best, harmful and life-threatening at worst, and some stuff I’ve never seen before. My world doesn’t have magic, for example.
The things that we really need are better surgical tools, facilities for sterilising and cleaning equipment so it can be safely used, anaesthesia, antibiotics.
Anaesthesia are drugs that stop a patient from feeling pain and sometimes make them unconscious. This is really, really important in surgery for a few reasons. First of all, if a patient can’t feel what is being done to them, it’s not going to be traumatic, which could lead to different problems and cause complications and dangers in the surgery. Secondly, they’re able to stay still (less thrashing and screaming) and give the surgeon a chance to get things done, and get them done without hurting them or doing more damage, and be able to better focus on what they’re doing. It basically gives the surgeon more time and means more complicated surgeries can be done than might otherwise be possible.
Antibiotics are very strong medicine, and very important. They help the body heal after surgery by fighting disease that could sneak in while the body’s healing up from getting cut up and poked about. Being able to sterilise equipment with extremely hot steam will help as well, and making sure people scrub down their hands properly and all that. Antibiotics will be a challenge to figure out, and honestly I don’t know if we will. Magic might be necessary to help heal incisions to avoid infections, I don’t know, but the more we can do the better the rates of survival and opportunities to make lives better will be.
I'm happy to answer any questions you can fling at me, unless they involve iambic pentameter.
no subject
My qualifications and training are hard to translate into what this world uses, but I’ll do my best. Sorry this isn't the best organised letter out there, but I didn't want to waste paper by re-writing this to death.
Writing out everything I can do would take a very long time and would be pretty hard to do exhaustively, if you wanted it broken down to skill by skill. Here’s a basic rundown of my education:
Twelve years of standard education in my country - maths, literature, science, history, etc.
After that, I when to university to study Biomedicine for three years, which I completed with an additional Honours year. Biomed is all about health, medicine, biomedical research. A big part of my focus was physiology. Hard to summarise, but I did well enough to get a guaranteed spot in a graduate course, and for a while I intended go into medicine and figured out I was going to specialise in surgery. Instead I decided to go into veterinary medicine and focus on animals rather than humans. My doctorate was an additional four years of study, on top of the four years of Biomed. Granted the physiology and a lot of stuff between people and animals is different, but it’s not like I’ve forgotten biomed, and veterinary medicine requires being knowledgeable in a lot of different areas, whereas doctors for people might only specialise in a particular field.
For the last five years I’ve been working as veterinarian, and doing some supplementary courses to expand my skills and expertise. Truthfully, I find university academia a bit shit and tiring and a pain in my backside, and I was bloody glad when I was done with it. The reality is, when you expand on the theory you can expand the practical side of stuff and use it to help people and creatures.
Cadavers are traditionally used to help medical students learn anatomy and practice techniques. Here I’d look at using them for perfecting surgical techniques and surgeries I’ve not done before, and figuring out if new equipment will do the job. Practicing and figuring all that out on cadavers would be a lot better than trialling it on living patients whose lives need saving.
I’m still learning about the local diseases, but I’m going to assume that yes, there are things I haven’t seen here before. Even if there aren’t different sicknesses to my world, it’s not like we know about all the diseases there, either. Since this place has dragons, I don’t know, maybe there’s dragon pox. I’ve seen some of the native treatments, and there’s a mix of stuff that is known to be useless at best, harmful and life-threatening at worst, and some stuff I’ve never seen before. My world doesn’t have magic, for example.
The things that we really need are better surgical tools, facilities for sterilising and cleaning equipment so it can be safely used, anaesthesia, antibiotics.
Anaesthesia are drugs that stop a patient from feeling pain and sometimes make them unconscious. This is really, really important in surgery for a few reasons. First of all, if a patient can’t feel what is being done to them, it’s not going to be traumatic, which could lead to different problems and cause complications and dangers in the surgery. Secondly, they’re able to stay still (less thrashing and screaming) and give the surgeon a chance to get things done, and get them done without hurting them or doing more damage, and be able to better focus on what they’re doing. It basically gives the surgeon more time and means more complicated surgeries can be done than might otherwise be possible.
Antibiotics are very strong medicine, and very important. They help the body heal after surgery by fighting disease that could sneak in while the body’s healing up from getting cut up and poked about. Being able to sterilise equipment with extremely hot steam will help as well, and making sure people scrub down their hands properly and all that. Antibiotics will be a challenge to figure out, and honestly I don’t know if we will. Magic might be necessary to help heal incisions to avoid infections, I don’t know, but the more we can do the better the rates of survival and opportunities to make lives better will be.
I'm happy to answer any questions you can fling at me, unless they involve iambic pentameter.
Alex