Chief Medical Officer

The Chief Medical Officer is in charge of the health of the crew. They make sure that the Medical Doctors are treating people effectively, and making sure the Virologists and Chemists are working for the good of the station.

Overview
You control the entire medbay. Other than treating injured crew, it is your responsibility to ensure that important crew (including yourself) have received genetic backups and death alarms, and that all crew are using their suit sensors when appropriate,

You are the foremost medical expert on the station. The ideal Chief Medical Officer would have the knowledge to perform common surgical operations, manufacture the most essential pharmaceuticals, and develop 'cures' for viral infection. You should allow your subordinates to handle the bulk of the work, but don't be afraid to lend a hand. The objective in mind is ensuring that everyone in the department has their place; if you delegate all of your duties completely, you've lost your own place.

Your Job
You are often regarded as the least important Head of Staff, but in reality, you hold a great deal of power. Without a competent Chief Medical Officer coordinating things, the medbay often dissolves into a chaotic mess that only manages to heal anybody through sheer coincidence.

Your primary duty is to ensure that the crew is in top possible physical and mental shape. To do this, you will need the help of your assigned crew. Medical Doctors take several shapes; Nurses, Surgeons, Virologists and Emergency Medical Technicians. They all occupy the same slot, but have different, and obvious, specialties. The Chemist is responsible for the manufacture of important medicines. The Virologist is responsible for the development, and counteraction, of viral agents. The Psychologist is responsible for the mental health of crew.

Specialized Staff
When the round starts, review your medical staff and assign jobs. Remember, Emergency Physicians, Surgeons, and regular Doctors are all the same job, and they're all required to treat patients. Their specific title just indicates a specialization. They can and should be able to be given assignments outside of that, so long as it still falls within the description of Medical Doctor work. If they're unable or unwilling to do basic medical work because "they're a surgeon, not a doctor", then they need reeducating about what their job actually entails.

Make sure that you have a dedicated EMT team ready to respond to calls for medical assistance from outside of Medbay, someone manning the front desk to handle arrivals and minor cases, and someone - preferably a Surgeon - waiting in the wings to handle critical cases that require Cryo treatment or surgery. Each of these three assignments is vital for different reasons, and, once given a job, your staff should focus on doing that job exclusively except in case of emergency. If they don't, and they try to do someone else's job, it means that you have two doctors doing a job that could be done by one, and an area which is left understaffed. Make sure that everyone is entirely clear on exactly what their job is and why it is important.

When everyone has their assignments, make sure that everybody has their Medical belts stocked with the basic tools of the trade - gauze, ointment, inaprovaline, and things like that. Emergency Physicians should carry more than most, and should have a variety of Medkits available for unusual cases, since they're the first responders and may have to deal with anything.

Chemical Fixes
Once your main staff is set up, contact Chemistry and get them to start making medicines for your doctors. Clonexadone is a must-have, so have the Chemists take the cryoxadone from Cryo and mix some up immediately. Hyronalin, tricordrazine, alkysine, dexalin plus, spaceacillin, and ryetalyn are all important, so have those mixed up as soon as possible, and make sure that your doctors know that they're available and where to find them. Make sure that Virology gets some diluted milk and radium, too, or your Virologists won't be able to do anything. Once you have all of the basic medicines, have Chemistry mix up a little bit of everything and stock up on the important stuff.

Responding
As with other Head positions, a large part of your job is to be watchful for any calls for medical assistance. As soon as one comes in, make sure that your EMTs are responding and that the rest of your staff are ready to take in anybody who can't be treated in the field. It's also a good idea to ask for an Odysseus from Robotics, preferably with two mounted Sleepers. Make sure that your EMTs know how to operate it; an Odysseus can save a lot of lives and make it possible for your EMTs to answer calls that they would normally be unable to due to its armour and internals.

Outbreaks
When diseases break out, this is your chance to shine. You have a biohazard suit inside of your office. Use it. Then consult the Virologist and Chemist. You have the authority to isolate and detain anyone experiencing symptoms.

Vaccinate the medical personnel and quarantine the infected. Administer the drugs, keep people alive. Your Medical Doctors should be helping with this, if they're not, shout them into line.

Hypospray
This is your medical tool, your lifeline. It's a fast injector (dealing bursts of 5 units, with a fill limit of 30 units). It starts with 30 units of Tricordrazine. You need to get rid of the chemicals inside before you can fill it with different medicine, and the only way to get anything out is to inject it into somebody. It's considered very bad form to just go around injecting people however.

Good candidates for your hypospray are Tricordrazine or Inaprovaline.

Links to Other Departments
As the CMO, you're the link between the captain, the other heads of staff, and your medical department. Security will often be a source of casualties, whether officers or prisoners; make sure any doctor going to treat a dangerous prisoner has an escort. Science--especially Toxins and Xenobiology--will send you its share of patients, too. When your equipment gets blown up, Engineering can rebuild it. During an epidemic, one of your most important connections is, strangely enough, the lowly janitor, whose biosuit allows him to safely clean up infectious material and slow the spread of the disease. You will also be required to try to explain why people are going crazy, returning from the dead, or trapped in the body of a monkey. Good luck with that one.

Traitoring
So, you're a traitor CMO? Don't fret. You have many possible tools to help with your objectives. Your hypospray will help a bit, try filling it with Choral Hydrate for sedation purposes. You have access to Chemistry, so you can sneak in there and make some space lube or similar. You can pretend to "heal" hurt targets brought in, and even disrupt some targets getting cloned.

The bottom line here is to be a bad doctor.

Changeling
As a changeling CMO, you've got plenty of options. One of your major goals is to capture Genetics so you can absorb genomes quite easily. The spray bottle and hypospray can both be used to knock out victims, and you can lure many humans on the pretense on healing them. CMOlings are best played stealthily. Try not to get anyone too suspicious with you, and see if you can snag an Assistant's card early for maintenance access (or ask the HoP for it.)