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Tools of the Trade
| Tool | Function |
|---|---|
 Scalpel |
Used for cutting through flesh. Improvised Equivalents:PICT System  , Kitchen Knife , or Glass Shard .
|
 Incision Management System (IMS) |
Used for cutting through flesh, skips bleeder clamping and organ rearranging. Basically acts as a scalpel, hemostat, and retractor in one step during the initial incision. Only functions as a scalpel in steps after the first. |
 Hemostat |
Used to stop bleeding during an operation, or to remove foreign and undesirable objects from a patient's body. Improvised Equivalents: Wirecutters  if you are going to use it to extract items from the patient or Cable Coil  if you are going to use it to stop the bleeding of a patient.
|
 Bone Setter |
Used for setting bones back into place. If used on a bone that is not broken then you will break it. Improvised Equivalents: Wrench 
|
 Bone Gel |
Used for repairing broken/shattered bones. Improvised Equivalents: Screwdriver 
|
 Retractor |
Used for re-arranging organs, and moving cut ribcages & skulls. Improvised Equivalents: Crowbar 
|
 Cautery |
Used for sealing incisions in a patients skin. Burns skin together. Improvised Equivalents: Cigarette  , Lighter , or Blowtorch
|
 Fix-O-Vein |
Used for repairing veins and arteries. Improvised Equivalents: Surgical Line  , Cable Coil
|
 Circular Saw |
Used for cutting through bones. Improvised Equivalents: Hatchet  or Machete
|
 Advanced Trauma Kit |
Used to patch all organs except for the brain and eyes. |
Surgical Line |
A roll of military-grade surgical line, able to seamlessly seal and tend any wound. Also works as a robust fishing line for maritime deployments.
Improvised Equivalents: Fix-O-Vein |
 Synth Graft |
A roll of military-grade synthetic gauze, able to tend any burn wound. |
PICT Systerm |
The Precision Incision and Cauterization Tool uses a high-frequency vibrating blade, laser cautery, and suction liquid control system to precisely sever target tissues while preventing all fluid leakage. Despite its troubled development program and horrifying pricetag, outside of complex experimental surgeries it isn't any better than an ordinary twenty-dollar scalpel and can't create a full-length incision bloodlessly.
Improvised Equivalents: Fix-O-Vein |
 Surgical Drill |
You can drill using this item. You dig? |
- Improvised tools generally have a fairly high failure chance starting at about 25%. An improvised PICT will spray blood all over you and your patient, dealing 25 burn damage and some organ damage.
Preparing for Surgery
Tools
Before you begin to operate, you should make sure you have all the tools you will need. Occasionally a surgeon will accidentally pocket a tool, or a deploying field surgeon will grab tools out of an operating theatre.
Specifically designed surgical tools are the best, but there are a variety of substitutes; some tools can be used outside of their intended role, and others can be replaced with improvised substitutes.
- The equipment on the Almayer is adequate, but sometimes marines will find better tools while deployed. If someone asks if you'd like an Incision Management System, the correct answer is "yes please".
Surgical Surface
The second requirement is a place to work. Some surgeries can be performed on a standing patient, and it doesn't matter where you perform them. Most, however, need a decent surface to work on.
The patient doesn't necessarily need to be buckled - having them on the same tile will do. If a surface isn't ideal, the surgery will take longer - and possibly a lot longer.
- The ideal surface for surgery is a proper operating table.
This is designed for surgery and has a built-in anesthetic system for patients buckled to it. This is the only surface that can be used for extracting xenomorph larvae.
- The next best thing is a portable surgical bed.
- The surfaces that are better than nothing are beds,
roller beds, 
tables, 
and window frames. 
- The worst surfaces are floors and Med-Evac stretchers,
which are not designed for surgery, and trying to work with their fittings in their way is as hard as no surface at all.
Anesthetic
Surgery is a painful experience, and patients find it difficult to hold still while feeling someone cut into their flesh, which tends to frustrate everyone involved. There are two ways around this: an unconscious (or dead) patient, or powerful painkillers.
Anesthetic (with tank and mask or using the surgery table's integrated anesthesia setup) is a simple and reliable way to render your patient unconscious.
- if the patient's lungs are ruptured, they will occasionally not breath in the anesthetic. Depending on the damage to the lungs, they will either occasionally breath in the anesthetic or it won't work at all. Therefore, you will have to give the patient the anesthetic via Injection, until his lungs are not ruptured anymore.
Operating Table
If you are using an operating table, place your patient on the table (grab your patient, then click the table with your grabbing hand selected). Then buckle them to it to connect the anaesthetic system (click hold and drag the patient to the operating table). After a short delay, your patient will be under general anaesthetic, which will allow you to operate safely.
- The operating table must have an anaesthetic tank attached to be able to put your patient to sleep.
- Click on the surgery table with an anaesthetic tank in hand to insert one.
- Click on the table with an empty hand when no patient is buckled to it to remove an existing one.
- If the tank runs out, simply replace it with a new one.
Anesthetic Tank and Medical Mask
If there is no available operating table then you can make the patient wear an anesthetic tank and medical mask and turn on its internals. Encourage your patient to don and activate the tank and mask themselves, as this is much faster than doing it yourself.
- It is advisable to remove the anesthetic tank and medical mask during the cauterizing step for maximum efficiency; the anesthetic takes a few seconds to wear off.
Painkillers
If you don't have anesthetic equipment or you just want to save time, you can give your patients Oxycodone for quick surgeries without anesthetic (15-20U recommended). You will need to work quickly, though, as it wears off.
Different surgeries cause different amounts of pain. If Oxycodone isn't available, some painkillers are much better than none; a mixture of Tramadol, Inaprovaline or Paracetamol (Paracetamol and Tramadol are toxic when mixed - do not give them simultaneously) will make them less likely to flinch.
- Use your medical scanner to monitor your patient's painkiller levels and re-dose as necessary. Using painkillers instead of anesthetics can cause distress in the patient (screaming over the radio about getting operated on without anesthetics, standing up and trying to leave or fight back).
Now that the preparations are done, you can begin with the actual surgery.
Surgeries
Surgeries are simple processes with a series of steps. Once these steps are memorized it should become effortless and routine to perform. Keep in mind that once you have mastery over the basics, it's a good idea to aim to be as fast and efficient as possible due to the importance of recycling casualties back into the fight, or even preventing them from dying in the case of Foreign Object/Alien Embryo Removal.
To perform surgery on someone, you must Toggle the Surgery Mode to be On. This can be bound to a hotkey in preferences. 
This will toggle the Help-Intent Safety preference, if you didn't have it already, preventing you from accidentally hurting people with objects when on help intent. You will be forced on to Help intent (top left, 1) 
, which allows you to perform any surgeries.
- Only one surgery can be performed on a given aim-location at a time.
- Once you complete a step in a surgery, you must finish the surgery before you can begin a different one.
- Failing or cancelling the first attempted step doesn't injure the patient unless done deliberately.
- Some steps can be skipped, if the conditions are right, sometimes including the first step.
- If you are in a rush, attempting surgery steps on Disarm intent (top right, 2)
deliberately fails the step. For a handful of specific steps, this will quickly and violently complete the step at the expense of your patient's health. Useful when you need to do a critical surgery very quickly, or to save time if you're certain you know what you're doing. It isn't necessary to switch back to Help intent afterwards - that happens automatically.
Standing Patients and Self-Surgery
Some surgeries can be performed on a patient who's standing up. These surgeries aren't affected by the surface under the patient. These are marked as (STANDING).
Some surgeries can be performed on yourself. As you need to be able to hold tools while you work, this means they have to be able to be performed on a standing patient, since people who're lying down can't handle objects. These are marked as (SELF).
- If you're trying to work on a standing patient and can't begin a surgery that you know you should be able to, make sure that it doesn't need them to be lying down.
- Since it's difficult and awkward to work on your own body, self-surgery takes longer to do.
- You can't perform surgery on the same arm you're holding the tool with.
- Self-surgery requires you to use painkillers rather than anesthesia, since it's hard to work when unconscious.
Required Skills
Your character's training affects how quickly they can work.
Some surgeries can be performed by anyone with any surgical training, but others need a more thorough education.
Medics, nurses, and pilot officers all have basic surgical training and can perform simple level 1 surgeries.
Doctors, chief medical officers, and synthetic units have more skills and can perform level 1 and level 2 surgeries.
You may occasionally see Professor DUMMY, the medical mannequin. This is a sophisticated training tool designed to realistically simulate any wound. Real patients are more difficult to perform surgery on - a medic may be able to set Professor DUMMY's broken ribs, but that doesn't mean they can do it on a real patient in the field. (You can create an ahelp to ask admins to spawn you in a Professor DUMMY)
Level 1 Surgeries
| Surgery: | Description: |
|---|---|
| Suture Wound (Everywhere except mouth/eyes.) | Suture and tend a wound that has brute or burn damage on it. This will heal 10 brute on the targeted area when a surgical line is used, and will heal 10 burn if a synth graft is used. This will loop until all damage on the area has been fixed.
|
| Foreign Object (Everywhere except mouth/eyes.) | Removal of unknown objects, such as shrapnel or implants from the body.
|
| Sealing a Stump (Severed Arms and Legs) | Sealing a stump where the patient's arm or leg should have been.
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| Autopsy (Only on Permanently Dead) | Helps find out how the person died. Displays wounds, possible causes, and detected chemicals in the body.
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Level 2 Surgeries
| Surgery: | Description: |
|---|---|
| Alien Embryo Removal | Removal of an alien embryo from the body.
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| Bone Repair Surgery (Everywhere except mouth/eyes.) | This surgery is used for mending broken bones and fractures.
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| Internal Organs Surgery (Groin, Chest.) | Mending broken internal organs such as the heart or appendix. Note that this surgery excludes the eyes and brain as they have their own surgeries respectively.
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| Eye Surgery (Eyes.) | Mending the eyes to cure blindness and eye damage.
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| Brain Damage Surgery (Head.) | Fixing up the brain.
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| Internal Bleeding Surgery (Everywhere except mouth/eyes.) | This surgery mends the torn/ripped arteries and veins within the body to stop internal bleeding.
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| Facial Reconstruction Surgery (Mouth.) | This surgery fixes facial deformities caused by severe damage to the head. I.E. "Unknown as (name)" when speaking.
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| Amputation (Limbs: Legs, Arms, Hands, Feet.) | Removal of a limb.
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| Limb Replacement Surgery (Limbs: Legs, Arms, Hands, Feet.) | The replacement of missing limbs with robotic ones. Robot arms and legs are used to replace hands and feet; there is no need to further amputate if that's all the patient has lost.
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| Synthetic Head Re-Attachment Surgery (Head.) | Re-attaching a decapitated synthetic head.
Note: There isn't a timer on defibbing a synthetic.
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->
) OR use (
->
) (Use the Health Analyzer to double check)
/
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on the synthetic.The Autodoc System
The Autodoc system is located in the middle of the treatment center and is only usable by the medical staff (and Squad Medics during WO). Note that while the autodoc is an extremely useful machine in medical, it cannot conduct larva removal surgery.
| Manual: | Manual mode will fix everything of the selected surgery type, for example selecting broken bone surgery will fix all broken bones one by one. Note that the autodoc cannot remove larva as, narratively, a removal procedure for this has not yet been programmed.
Trauma Surgeries
Orthopedic Surgeries
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Combining Surgeries
Very often people will come in with multiple problems at once. For instance, you might have a patient who has a fractured skull, brain damage, and shrapnel in their head. Performing three separate surgeries is very time consuming when other marines may be waiting. It is possible to condense the surgery down to one in such a manner:
- Broken skull, brain damage, and head shrapnel removal surgery
- Use the Incision Management System.
OR (
->
->
) to make an incision. 
Cut through the skull- Open up the skull
- Here it gets a bit tricky, use a hemostat repeatedly to pull out bone chips and shrapnel until you get a message that nothing more can be found in the brain. Both types of removal can take several rounds or attempts.
Use the FixOVein and Trauma Kit to repair hematomas and damage to the brain and eyes if necessary- Use the Health Analyzer to check that the patient does not have brain damage! If the patient still has brain damage go back and use the hemostat and FixOVein more until the Analyzer shows no brain damage.
- Close the skull back up
Use bone gel on the damaged bones in the skull
Piece together the broken or fractured skull- Add bone gel once more
Seal up the incision- Use the Health Analyzer again to see if the patient needs antibiotics or anti-toxins and administer them as needed
What about an infected marine with a broken chest, internal bleeding, and a ruptured lung? Here you'll want to use medication from the vendors in medbay in order to tackle the problems at hand.
- Alien embryo removal, ruptured lung, and broken chest surgery (with a side of internal bleeding)
- First use one Quick-clot and one Dexalin Plus injectors to stop internal bleeding and to halt suffocation damage from the ruptured lung. While you can stop internal bleeding surgically, in the vast majority of cases a quick jab with Quick-clot is preferable. Keep a couple of Dex+ injector on hand to keep the patient from dying from the ruptured lung.
- Make an incision quickly
- Ignore bleeders and rearrange organs. Removing the larva ASAP is the top priority right now
- Cut open the rib cage
- Separate the rib cage
Begin cutting out the alien embryo- Begin pulling out the alien embryo
- Repair the ruptured lungs and any other damaged organs, note that a mechanical heart requires
to fix - Now stem the bleeders with the hemostat
- Close up the rib cage
- One application of bone gel for the cut rib cage. Cut rib cages and skulls require one application of bone gel after they've been pushed back together.
- Set the broken bones in the chest
- An application for the set bones. In general remember that fixing a broken bone requires two application of bone gel before the setting it.
- Cauterize the incision, your patient should be recovering nicely now
- Again, use the Health Analyzer to double-check your work and to dispense dylovene as needed
Tips
- Patients can often tell you where they need surgery if an advance scanner is not available.
- The hemostat step can be saved for later in the surgery or skipped entirely at the cost of your patient losing blood volume. Alternatively, you can use Quickclot to prevent bleeding when you are in a hurry.
- Be sure to stand in a spot where you won't be pushed around. Any movement will violently fail the surgery step you are currently performing. It is recommended for field surgeons to bring a folding chair for this exact reason.
- The most common type of surgery that a person would need is Bone Repair Surgery and Internal Organs Surgery. Be sure to be familiar with the steps.
- Note that only the Sealing a Stump surgery and Alien Embryo Removal surgery require a high level of anesthetic/painkilling, like what Oxycodone ( PNK 8) or the surgical table provides when hooked up to the patient (provided they have functional lungs).
- Tramadol has enough painkilling ( PNK 5) to perform all other surgeries besides Sealing a Stump surgery and Alien Embryo Removal. Tramadol also lasts longer than Oxycodone, leading to less time wasted injecting and more time for performing surgery. Ideal for several broken bone surgeries in a row. Best used in tandem with Quickclot for extra efficiency whether on the field or in a surgical theatre.
- Be sure to check if any Tramadol is already in the system when performing the initial scan, as it is often used as a painkiller.
- You can heal internal bleeding with bicaridine overdose if the patient does not have any brute damage. This will not work if the patient has brute damage, the bicardine OD will first heal all of patient's brute damage before beginning to heal internal bleeding. If used, administer kelotane to the patient to counter the burn damage done by the overdose, and kit any damaged body parts to ensure brute damage is at 0. Inform the patient they have IB, and that you are overdosing them on bicaridine. The patient will take toxin damage and will require dylovene if the overdose is over 45 units, so be careful. If the patient has an exceedingly high amount of brute damage, administer quick clot and evacuate them for surgery.
- If you see a broken red heart next to the patient, that means they have heartbreak. The broken heart indicates that the patient's heart has suffered too much trauma for revival attempts. When scanned the message will say: "Patient's general condition does not allow reviving." To fix this, a doctor (or person able to do surgery level 2 or higher) must repair their heart in time before any further revival attempts are under taken. If a doctor (or someone applicable) is not immediately available, perform CPR on the corpse to extend their defib timer until a doctor can perform surgery to repair the heart.
- Shrapnel is never good as it gives organ damage when received, and deals brute damage (which can also cause further organ damage) when moving with it still inside the body. The most common way to remove shrapnel is to way remove with a knife or other sufficiently sharp object. To do this, activate/click yourself/patient on help intent with knife in hand. Yanking out the object is another option (only if object is externally embedded). To do this, right click the person with shrapnel and click Yank out object. The last option is surgery (only if object is deeply embedded or small to remove).
- Refer to Guide to Medicine, Chemistry, or the Researcher page for further information.