[Basic] Skill of the week: Veterinary

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by acrosome

OK, Flydarian. I let a lot of wacky stuff you post slide, but not the series culminating in this.

There's a saying from medical school: "Ninety percent of the time you will know the patient's diagnosis just from talking to them." And it's true. Or at the very least you can form a reasonable differential diagnosis and go from there.
...

To avoid derailing this thread, I'll just say that your experiences don't mesh with those of anyone I know or any studies I've read.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

To avoid derailing this thread, I'll just say that your experiences don't mesh with those of anyone I know or any studies I've read.

To AVOID derailing the thread?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

To AVOID derailing the thread?

To avoid derailing the thread FURTHER.

As to medical skills, lots of confusions and vague description abound.

[ericthered]

I don't think I've purchased veterinary on any character that didn't already have a bunch of healing skills and figured he may as well learn animals as well.

[RyanW]

Also, a doctor with a human patient can usually trust that the instructions are at least understood, if not followed. Every doctor will tell you patients will return to activities and quit taking medications too soon (or will oversell their issues in order to get sympathy, breaks, and pills), but even something like "hold your head still and follow my finger with your eyes" just doesn't work with a cat.

And then there are ailments, like my knee, that don't even present as pain. A cat can't exactly tell the doctor "I just fell down the other day when my leg buckled for no obvious reason."

[dcarson]

Originally Posted by Bruno

We had a druid in our party who used Plant Form Other to turn people into pumpkin vines (with one large gourd wearing your hat... or horns if you're a Minotaur) and then used Heal Plant on us. Plant Form Other is supposed to turn you into an inconspicuous bush, but Rule of Funny took over.

Showed that to a friend of mine. Reminded them of a campaign where the PCs got turned into Pinocchio style puppets. The PC with Carpentry skill became the party healer.

[Flyndaran]

So Physician assume cooperative, informative, and accurate patients.
But when a non-human animal is just cooperative a Vet gets +5.
So it's merely more about adventurer utility for why it's effectively orders of magnitude easier than single species Human?

Unless there's something that Physician can do that Vet can't. Is there?

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

To avoid derailing this thread, I'll just say that your experiences don't mesh with those of anyone I know or any studies I've read.

Well, then I'll just counter that your claims don't mesh with the experiences of any doctors I know. And I know a lot of doctors. :P I mean, I'd really like to see cites for these "studies" that claim to support veterinary diagnosis being easier than human diagnosis. I think you're just bunkering up, here.

One thing that can be annoying, though, is historical alternans, which is when the patient mentions some crucially important symptom to the attending, after failing to mention it to the resident.

Nonetheless, you get a hell of a lot of information from a patient by talking to them that you cannot get from a critter. You can only observe a critter. But you can observe a human, too. We look at gait when they walk in, for instance. Pink Puffer versus Blue Bloater. Etc. So you definitely get information from a human that you can't get from a critter. Critter = objective data only. Signs. Human = both objective and subjective data. Both signs and symptoms. My mind boggles at the thought that veterinary diagnosis is somehow easier, except in that we know a lot more about human pathophysiology so we are diagnosing much more obscure processes in humans, which is necessarily more difficult. When a critter has something obscure the answer is usually euthanasia and necropsy. So if that's what you're talking about then, ok, chalk this one up to interwebs communications failures. Otherwise, I'll call you on this one.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Unless there's something that Physician can do that Vet can't. Is there?

Below the resolution of GURPS rules for the most part. Realistically there are large numbers of diseases and syndromes that are treatable in humans that aren't in vetinary medicine. Trauma medicine is about the same though, and that is more game relevent.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by acrosome

... I mean, I'd really like to see cites for these "studies" that claim to support veterinary diagnosis being easier than human diagnosis. I think you're just bunkering up, here.
...

I'm not saying it's easier in reality. +5 to skill, because a non-human is somewhat cooperative is what makes it easier.