Quote:
Originally Posted by cptbutton
Low Berth Attendant. On big ships there may be a lot of them, on small ships just one, or an extra job of whatever the ship has as a medic.
How prestigious a job is this? Is becoming a LBA the rock bottom of the medical profession you sink to as you screw up everything else, or is it a regular honest health services job?
|
GMs choice I suppose. The mechanics and risks of low berths vary between editions of Traveller.
In the inspirational source material, and LBB versions of the game, that gave us stuff like the Low Lottery, sure, it probably would be the kind of job you get when your malpractice suits force you to flee from the law and your alcoholism is too obviously crippling for even the more desperate gang bosses to hire you as an unlicensed doctor.
In later versions, where more consideration has been given to reasonable economics and the not very lawless frontier-like state of most of the Imperium, it's presumably a respectable enough medical career. Not a top rung one - it's a routine job that doesn't require enormous ability to pull off (it can't or it could never have become a popular enough option to be common), so more like family medicine or being a nurse practicioner than a top flight surgeon, but people are trusting you with their lives, so it's not down there with changing the bedpans in a nursing home. It's also likely one you're employed by the regular passenger lines in port for, not something done by somebody who travels with the ship.