Doctoring
Overview
Doctoring is a type of work performed with the medicine skill. Doctoring includes treating injuries, treating diseases, performing surgical operations, and taking care of patients (entertaining and feeding). How well a colonist performs in doctoring mainly depends on their medicine skill and medicine used, but their physical well-being plays an important role too: A healthy colonist with a lower medicine skill will perform better at doctoring than a colonist with a missing arm or eye and a higher medicine skill.
The following table documents a few of many possible combinations of how factors play into a colonist's performance at doctoring:
| Colonist | Medicine Skill | Base Treatment Quality | Manipulation [1] | Sight [2] | Final Treatment Quality [3] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A [4] | 6 | 80% | 100% | 100% | 80% |
| B [5] | 18 | 200% | 60% | 30% | 62.72% |
| C [6] | 3 | 50% | 190% | 140% | 109.51% |
| D [7] | 11 | 130% | 50% | 100% | 71.5% |
- ↑ 90% importance in treatment quality
- ↑ 70% importance in treatment quality, but only effective up to 130%
- ↑ To 2 decimal places
- ↑ Healthy, practitioner in medicine
- ↑ Bad back, frail, and cataracts, visionary in medicine
- ↑ Fully bionic trauma savant, basic familiarity with medicine
- ↑ Missing an arm, strong expert with medicine
Medicines
Medicine is typically used to improve the results of doctoring, and therefore improve recovery from injuries and disease, as well as allowing the performing of surgery. Another perk to using medicine is that medicine is typically able to heal multiple injuries (depending on severity), which is something that 'dry-bandaging' can't do.
There are currently three types of medicine in RimWorld: the organic herbal medicine, the bog standard medicine, and the coveted glitterworld medicine - in order from least potent to most potent.
Herbal Medicine
Herbal medicine is an organic medicine which can be grown from Xerigium (aka healroot), or purchased from tribal traders. It is not very powerful, and its best application is in treating injuries, the flu, and chronic diseases - but it can be good at treating more severe diseases in the hands of a skilled and/or enhanced doctor. However, Herbal Medicine isn't powerful enough to reliably perform surgery at all, and you'll often fail regardless of surgeon ability.
| Attributes | Medical Potency | Market Value | Mass (kg) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Values | 40% | 12 | 0.35 |
Medicine
File:Medicine.png
Standard medicine is the benchmark of medical treatment solutions, and is also producible at a drug lab by combining herbal medicine, neutroamine, and cloth. It can additionally be purchased from outlanders and orbital traders, or occasionally dropped by pirate raiders and mercenaries. Medicine is best used for treating severe illnesses, but it's risky to perform surgery with ordinary medicine due to its lower medical potency, unless your surgeon is sufficiently enhanced. Odds can be improved by as little as a shot of go-juice for boosted consciousness, but the risk will still be present.
It's not the best idea to excise cancerous growths regardless of enhancements, however, and that should be left to the power of Glitterworld Medicine.
| Attributes | Medical Potency | Market Value | Mass (kg) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Values | 70% | 18 | 0.5 |
Glitterworld Medicine
Glitterworld Medicine is the most powerful medicine out of the three types available, and can only be produced on high-tech Glitterworlds. Despite the high price, Glitterworld Medicine carries a value which no other medicine can carry: enhanced medical potency. Naturally, due to the cost, Glitterworld Medicine isn't worth the price for treating trivial diseases or injuries - but it makes surgery significantly easier, and allows even mediocre doctors to guarantee success in operations.
Whether it be bringing somebody from the jaws of death from the plague, excising cancerous growths, or installing bionics: Glitterworld Medicine is your answer.
| Attributes | Medical Potency | Market Value | Mass (kg) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Values | 160% | 100 | 0.5 |
To-do List (temporary)
To-do list for this page (not in order, feel free to contribute):
- More in-depth explanation for the 'optimal' uses for each medicine type
- Herbal medicine for treating injuries, chronic diseases, and the flu
- Standard medicine for treating more severe diseases (i.e. malaria, plague, sleeping sickness)
- Glitterworld medicine for surgery and grim outlooks for severe diseases (but only to a certain point)
- Describe the treatment quality system
- Sanitation: How it affects surgery, and infection likelihood.
- Tables to detail 'Medicine' skill level in regards to medical performance in all aspects - in progress
- Physical well-being's effect on this too