[Sickbay]: Round Four Scans and Vaccines

[ten_fwd_npcs]

There has been quite a lot of activity in Sickbay over the last couple of days. In addition to new guests arriving on the Enterprise, all of whom need to be cleared and vaccinated when necessary, there are the wounded who have come back from Alemar III and those looking in on them. Dr. Crusher has never been more glad that she isn't short-staffed.

While Lieutenant Worf and his security detail bring in the new passengers, Beverly ensures those recuperating have enough space and privacy. Beds may be limited, but nobody will be on the floor in her sickbay. For those who haven't been here before, Sickbay is fairly ordinary for a ship's hospital. There are no terrifying devices or humming machines you might see in a sci-fi thriller. The biobeds along the walls are equipped with biofunction monitors, but look fairly standard. Instead of silver trays filled with metal tools and sawblades, there are an array of small devices that look as harmless as cell phones.

As for the staff, they're all well-groomed and friendly. As a matter of fact, all personnel look harmless. Well, perhaps excluding the sun avatar, but Trance Gemini is as skilled as the Starfleet officers.

"All right, come in," one of them calls out as you enter. "Don't be shy. It's just a scan and a hypospray, nothing to worry about."


[ooc: Open log! For new characters (August and September apps), tagging isn't mandatory but ICly going to sickbay is. So if you'd prefer to skip threading with one of our doctors, you can handwave that your character got a clean bill of health and a shot and were sent on their merry way. For those who are tagging, we have Julian Bashir, Trance Gemini, and Simon Tam on deck, with Beverly Crusher by request only. So please specify in the subject line of your tag who you would like. For those returned from the Alemar III plot, if you are not requesting a thread with a doctor but would like your character open for visitors, put "Visiting Post" in your subject line, or specify if it's locked to specific visitors. If you would like more details about sickbay, here's the wiki page. If you haven't made your intro yet, you can assume the doctors will want to see your character shortly after they arrive, and backtagging is love!]

Comments

First Come First Serve

[raavashing]

To most anyone else the sight of the sickbay was welcoming and gave an air of harmlessness. For Wan, who had never seen anything like it in his life prior to waking up very expectantly on the ship, it was just as alien and potentially dangerous as the rest of the place. Which wasn't to say he was scared - he wasn't - but he was wary of it. Particularly since he'd been told the visit was required and he'd be treated as a prisoner otherwise. It made him visibly cautious and distrustful of the people of this space-city.

When he was waved over to a bed, he approached it, but did not sit. He stood at one end and studied the strange instruments arrayed out on the nearby table. Once he'd given them a look over, he turned his attention to the people in the room. Most of them were in that strange clothing, but it was colored blue. The colors clearly had a meaning of some sort. This was supposed to be healers enclave of some sort and spirit water did heal, so perhaps they wore blue to show their connection to the element of water?

Works for me c:

[asklepian]

Another round of visitors, another round of scans and vaccinations. Julian was very nearly seeing more new faces now on the Enterprise than he did on Deep Space 9.

...Well, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but the variety was simply staggering. Everyone looked just a little bit different--some were more eye-catching than others for various reasons, one of which being their demeanor. He could pick up nervousness fairly well.

The blue in his own uniform was limited to the undershirt, his shoulders grey, but otherwise it was very similar to the clothing of Doctor Crusher's staff--he seemed to belong, if only tangentially. He at least seems comfortable enough.

"Hello, there. My name is Doctor Bashir--I'll be taking care of your examination."

[raavashing]

Wan's eyes snapped to Julian, focusing on the difference in his clothes from the others in the room before going back to his face. The man seemed friendly, at the very least. That didn't change Wan's distrust just yet, but it helped.

"Hello Doctor Bashir," he replied in a calm, if still wary, tone. "My name is Wan."

[asklepian]

"Hello, Wan. I'm truly sorry for all the trouble--I doubt the Security officers explained much to you. What we're doing is making sure we have the necessary information to help you if you become sick or injured, and giving vaccinations for illnesses you probably haven't encountered. After we're done, you'll be free to go anywhere on the ship that isn't restricted access."

Honestly, explaining this up front would help quite a lot. Julian still remembered getting threatened during the first round of exams he helped with.

"Do you have any questions for me?"

[raavashing]

"Why do you need to do that?" Was his immediate question. "If I get hurt you can treat me then. If I get sick you can have me suck on a frog or whatever I need to do at that time. You can't treat me before I'm sick."

[asklepian]

Julian looks genuinely baffled. "Why in the world would we have you suck on a frog?" Of all the crazy things--and a fantastic way to get salmonella at best. That sounds incredibly gross.

[raavashing]

"Because it reduces your temperature and gets rid of hallucinations," he replied in a flat 'duh' voice. He was very much from a time before any kind of modern medicine. "Assuming I had a fever and was seeing things in the first place. If I wasn't, it wouldn't do anything. It's not as good as spirit water, but Aye-Aye said it works in a pinch."

[asklepian]

Do you see any frogs about, Wan?

"I...see. Illness covers quite a broader spectrum than high temperatures and hallucinations, and we do have medicines for it that don't involve putting amphibians in your mouth. And ways to prevent them from occurring in the first place, called vaccinations--so yes, we can in fact treat you before you're sick."

[raavashing]

Wan is skeptical and it shows, "How does that work?"

[asklepian]

Explaining microbiology and modern medicine to someone whose medical science hadn't progressed beyond 'insert frog in mouth' was not exactly high on Julian's list of things he'd like to do today. Oh well. Maybe he can get away with a simple explanation.

"Vaccinations are medicines that are specifically created to help your immune system--which is what naturally fights off infection--develop resistance to the illnesses that the vaccinations are for. So when you start getting sick, your body already knows how to fight it, and you don't actually show symptoms."

[raavashing]

That sort of made sense to Wan. Sort of. Maybe. It sounded like it should make sense, at least.

He remained wary as he continued his questions, "Will it hurt to get va- vasi- vas- that word?"

[asklepian]

Oh fantastic, he doesn't have to explain the concept of bacterial and viral infections.

"Not in the least. You may feel a slight pressure for a moment at the site of administration, depending on how closely you're paying attention, but we don't use needles at all."

[raavashing]

"Why would you use needles in the first place?" Needles were for sewing and- "Is it like acupuncture?"

[asklepian]

Why he expected Wan to know about hypodermics is beyond him.

"Vaccinations are administered under the skin, usually. It used to be that to do so, we would need to use hollow needles attached to clean syringes--tubes that were pressurized so the medicine could be given without touching them. We use pressurized air to do so now."

[raavashing]

Julian, you think far too highly of a man who would willingly stick a frog in your mouth if he thought it would bring your fever down.

"You use air to give people medicine?" That had Wan's interest and the wariness eased away into genuine curiosity. "I didn't know anyone here held the power of air. And I didn't know it could be used to heal."

[asklepian]

Please don't.

"Well, I don't have the power of anything, but yes, air can be used to administer medicines. It's the pressure that does the trick."

[raavashing]

He'd only do it if he knew it was the right kind of frog. They're found in mud pits.

"I don't understand. If you don't have the power of air, how do you use it to give medicine?"

[asklepian]

Yes, but land on another planet, look for a mudpit, and find a frog and chances are it'll be toxic.

"Using this," Julian explains, holding up an empty hypospray. He presses the button on top, which releases a little hiss of air.

[raavashing]

Wan is not yet aware of this fact. Fortunately, he's also not a trained healer and would defer to others. It's only if Julian is stuck alone with him on a planet while also having a fever that he is in danger of getting an alien frog stuffed in his mouth. And what are the odds of that?

Wan leaned back at the hiss of air, eyes widening. He stayed there for a heartbeat, just enough to register what had happened, before leaning in and grabbing for the hypospray. He wanted to examine it and try it out for himself.

[asklepian]

Well, Murphy's Law has survived well into the 24th century, so there's a good possibility.

Julian has no problems relinquishing an empty hypospray, so when Wan goes for it, Julian simply lets go.

[raavashing]

Julian has made Wan a very happy man as he starts pressing the button on it to make the air hiss out. After a few clicks, he brings it close to his face and shoots some air a little too close to his eyes, forcing him to blink fast and shake his head to clear them.

What a wonderful toy you have relinquished to him, Doctor. Perhaps while he's distracted, you can get some basic readings done with a tricorder?

[asklepian]

He can and does--he's pretty quick on the draw with the thing, from long experience. And it's not like he needs to take a deep tissue scan and full genetic profile. Though from what he sees, he sort of wishes he was--what the tricorder is picking up is fascinating. His body temperature is worryingly high, higher even than a Vulcan's, but he doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects for it--any normal human, even enhanced ones like himself, would have been dead from such high temperatures.

It's actually somewhat amusing and/or endearing to see Wan so fascinated with something anyone from this century would take completely for granted.

"Careful you don't do that with one that has something in it," he says cheerfully. The empty one isn't going to do any harm, but one that had a cartridge might.

[raavashing]

Wan's attention turned the the tricorder as Julian started taking readings with it. Like a fascinated child, Wan started following the hand motions of the doctor with the hypospray and shooting little blasts of air at the man's fingers every now and then.

"It has air in it," he replied in a distracted voice as he leaned forward and reached out with his other hand as if to try and touch the tricorder. He didn't, his fingers stopped just short of it, but he was obviously interested in the new contraption. "Does that one hold air, too?"

[asklepian]

"No, it doesn't." In fact, most Federation computer technology was in a vacuum environment, made memorable by the time Miles had dragged him along inside a console and Dax had needed to transport pressurized air into the chamber in front of them.

He turns the tricorder so Wan can see the screen--he doesn't expect the man to be able to interpret the information there, but there's a standard heartbeat monitor, slowly changing numbers and figures, readings of energy that Julian barely even knows how to interpret and he knows how to read a tricorder screen.

"This reads information about you that will make it easier for us to help you should you get sick or hurt."

[raavashing]

Wan reached out to take the tricorder and pull it closer to his face so he could study it, "What does it say about me?"

He was suspicious of this whole thing. It looked like the 'computer' panels on the walls with all the blinking lights and strange symbols he didn't understand. Only it was supposed to be reading stuff about him. Which made it potentially worth more caution. No matter what Julian said it was for. He couldn't see how it would help.