Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl
Do you need Physician in a world of magic though? Diagnosis is necessary for figuring out what is wrong, Esoteric Medicine is necessary to deal with minor chronic complaints, First Aid is necessary to stabilize minor injuries, and Surgery is necessary to stabilize major injuries, but I do not see a place for Physician when healing magic is common. Even if you only have one magical healer for every 1000 people, that would be sufficient to deal with life threatening diseases.
For Physician to develop (especially the barbaric Physician practiced before TL6) you really have to not have a better option. Even in TL8, Physician would have serious competition from magical healing. If you had effective magical healing, I think that Magery would be a requirement to get in medical school.
|
Another question might be, "are the jobs of physician and magical healer necessarily separate?".
If your university medical school teaches healing magic - or your priests of not-Aescipalus train in medicine then medicine and magic/theurgy become parts of the same toolbox. The same applies if things we consider "alternative medicine" are actually healing magic - sometimes a practitioner uses magic, sometimes mundane techniques, sometimes a combination of the two. If he can't help, he refers you to a specialist who can. When he writes a prescription it may be for a herbal remedy, a chemical one or an alchemical one.
Again, this assumes widespread magical competence as per the OP's implication.