I think Physician skill should be a VH skill.

[Anaraxes]

Doctors are one of the cases where you might consider a wildcard skill (Doctor!) if you want to save points as well as time, or just don't care for the fine granularity of skills that represent a real-world doctor.

[Pectus Solentis]

Originally Posted by Maz

If you put aside the name "Physician" and look at what it does in GURPS. Then it's used for "tending the sick and wounded".
Mechanically, helping wounded recover HP faster or recover crippled limbs faster.


This has, historically, been a job taken by people who do not have the highest academic education. But have a more broad education and a lot of practical knowledge: 'Holy men' and 'wise woman', monks, nuns, nurses and moms.

This tells me that it does NOT have "prodigious scope". But is in fact something anyone can learn, but is difficult to master.

p.B213 says Physician skill doesn't exist at TL4-. If your mention is right, then why does it?

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Pectus Solentis

So I think Physician skill should be VH skill, not Hard skill.

You have some nice numbers, but Physician is the main skill of a nurse rather than a doctor, at least in the US. Most of the doctors I know shouldn't be allowed near a patient with a needle in their hands!

Doctors generally have a higher diagnosis skill. In fact, much of medical school and their internship is learning how to diagnose problems. For this, I want a skilled doctor, though I pay attention to the nurse. If it looks as if the nurse disagrees with the doctor, I start questioning everything the doctor tells me.

Just remember that the Physician skill is more in general patient care, which is usually relegated to nurses.

[Ulzgoroth]

There's also some argument that the burden of becoming a doctor as we tend to know it is unnecessarily torturous as a gatekeeping mechanism. Which reinforces the general point that just because people spend a lot of time doing something doesn't necessarily imply it's worth a lot of points.

(That aside from the more central observation already made that Physician is certainly not the only and likely not the primary skill of a modern trained-and-licensed doctor.)

Originally Posted by Pectus Solentis

p.B213 says Physician skill doesn't exist at TL4-. If your mention is right, then why does it?

Immediately after saying that, it points out other skills that do exist at those tech levels and can be used for the same purposes. It's not immediately obvious that there's a substantively bigger jump from TL2 or 3 Esoteric Medicine or Pharmacy (Herbal) to TL4 Physician than from TL4 Physician to TL5 Physician. All four have much the same effects, except that the Physician versions are progressively better at it.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Pectus Solentis

Well. Things that students of College Of Medicine studies (e.g. anatomy) is notorious for its broadness and difficulty. Isn't it?

Anatomy is Physiology.
I also am ok with it being H instead ofVH as it changes a lot over time and TL. At Low TL its pretty simple and probably learned through trial and error by many people, at higher TL it gets more formalized to reduce death rate and adds a lot of supporting skills.