Medkit - Whats in the Bag?

Just having a chat with JALU3 about the Medkit in TNG-Era Trek. Technically for an ICON based game, but the identification of the contents of a Medkit seem to be trans-ruleset. So I thought that rather than a 2-person email chat, it would be worth raising this here to share the ideas and see what others have in mind;

We started disussion comparing against current military field medic kit, which is a far leger kit-bag, but I feel is not a fair comparison;

For example one of the biggest items in a modern medkit will be field dressings and bandages, but 'furturetech' will have replaced both of these (in most lighter wounds) with the Dermal Regenerator.

We know there is an external slot for Medical Tricorder and diagnosis hand-held device.

We have also seen extensive use of Hypo-spray and a selection of medicines from the medkit.

After that I am struggling to think of any additional cabnon kit produced by a doctor outside of sickbay, so what else?

I would imagine that there is a device for generating some sort of sterilisation field. Actually thats quite a good one. localed field that sterilises medical equipment and hands and can be setup around the wound.

As stated Dermal regenerators are a general catch-all, but there must be times that greater injuries are needing treatment, its a small bag, perhaps there is also some sort of mini-replicator for producing a number of field dressings upon requirement.

This would also mean that a portion of the bag is reserved for a micro power supply? (I cannot imagine that this will take up a lot of room when you consider the size of Micro-photon torpedoes as shown in the DS9 tech manual).

* Actually that starts to clarify the place where this conversation started where I was concerned by the potential 'catch-all' specialisation of Personal Equipment (Medkit) as advised in the main ICON RPG ruleset... If the bag itself has some functionality that then would explain where the specialisation may apply.

Well let us look at what type of injuries that a modern combat medic will most commonly deal with:
Abrasions and Lacerations
Deformities (Fractures) (caused by falls or combat related movement)
Puncture/Penetrations (caused by projectiles)
These all have internal damage that cannot be treated by the medic, and more importantly blood loss that can lead to shock and eventually death.
The reason for fast response is not necessarily to heal, but to stabilize and transport to those who can start the healing

In the Star Trek combat environment I would think that Burns (due to the extensive use of energy weapons) will be right after Abrasions and Lacerations, on the list of common External Trauma assessments in the field. Due to the amount of energy used in these weapons this may cause deep tissue second and third degree burns that may effect internal systems, especially the cardiovascular/circulatory system, that may effect more than the area of impact, leading to shock, and/or necrosis of the area distal to the point of impact. The use of energy weapons may also lead to nervous system damage due to the movement of the energy into the body and towards the ground.

The Dermal Re-generator appears to treat mainly the Epidermis and possibly the Dermis, but most likely it does not treat the underlying Muscles.

The Medical Tricorder is only good with assisting with the assessment of trauma, and continuing management of the patient by making taking vitals far easier, and managing other patient data like storing the assessment history and vital records that are required to be kept to assist the fixed facility medical personnel in later healing and treating the wounds.

The Hypo-spray is used for delivering the said medications that are carried, but that is more for pain management, and does not directly begin healing the trauma. One possibly is injection medical nano-bots that go in and begin internally assisting the healing process and/or attacking infections such as viruses and bacteria. However, with the Borg using such nano-bots in ways to assimilate people, that process may not be as readily accepted.

IIRC, there was an episode of TNG where Riker was in sickbay getting a broken rib fixed after sparring with Worf. Bev waved a saltshaker sized instrument that shone a beam on his body, and that cured the break instantly. So I wouldn't limit the medkit to items that only fix external injuries.

Anything that would revitalize, strengthen or speed up natural recovery processes. Things which can perform micro-extractions of substances or foreign objects within a body, or seal off sections of the body to avoid the spread of dangerous infections. Very importantly would be things which supplement or replace natural processes—emergency artificial heart replacements, oxygen infusers, nutrient providers, toxin expulsion, that sort of thing.

McCoy's equipment (and rant!) in ST4 implies that he can fix dialysis with a pill and, most interestingly, repair brain damage non-invasively. That means surgery in the 23rd and 24th centuries might be done without breaking the skin, making 90% of the problems of surgery (sterilization, blood loss, secondary tissue damage) irrelevant.

Hell, the kit might even be able to synthesize certain substances.

One huge thing some people might overlook: transport transponders to facilitate transport back to available sickbays or hospital facilities. Given that a full medical team is seconds away if you have a ship in orbit, getting them there alive through interference so they can deal with the problem most effectively would be priority one.

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Originally Posted by Sarge

IIRC, there was an episode of TNG where Riker was in sickbay getting a broken rib fixed after sparring with Worf. Bev waved a saltshaker sized instrument that shone a beam on his body, and that cured the break instantly. So I wouldn't limit the medkit to items that only fix external injuries.

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The episode that you're talking about is The Pegasus.

Now question is what are the limitations of a MedKit in the Star Trek universe, given all stated by T.O. Is it mainly powering certain medical tools? Would Tactical Pattern Enhancers be part of a Starfleet Corpsman's kit/bag?

Limitations: Exotic or uncommon synthetics. Various organic compounds (replicators can't do life). Long-term artificial life support or stasis fields. Complicated resuscitation. Certain forms of non-invasive microsurgery, since it's got to be hard controlling some of that stuff with just a tricorder and a saltshaker. I imagine most of the stuff the medkit does is automated; anything complex or unexpected—custom repair jobs, I guess—probably requires medical facilities. I can think of a dozen times Crusher or Bashir has said "I have to get him to Sickbay."

So carrying thios forward, we have essentially a new bit of kit extrapolated from what wasn't seen on screen. We know that the medical devices available to a medical officer are often quite small and multi-purpose, and we also know that the standard (TNG) medkit bag is a hard case, approx laptop bag sized. And we also know that Starfleet kit is often quite power intensive.

Couple of image searches;
http://poseidon.hyperjump.org/images/sickbay/medkit.jpg
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/ga...dikit-2364.jpg

So my thoughts are that the hard case includes a small amount of internal storage for Hypospray, Dermal regenerator and a few common ampules of medicine. There is a slot for the Tricorder so that this is even easier to hand.

The case itself (and the reason why there is an ICON skill specialisation) is also a part of the kit, it includes additional processors that link to the Tricorder to aid diagnosis and to incrrease portable analysis, a sub-space signal booster for relaying this data directly to sickbay (which also acts as a pattern enhancer on the bag, but also reads like a beacon, so bad for covert ops), and I like the idea of a mini-replicator for medications in the field, and a generated sterilisation field to sterilise the kit as its being used. Finally, also included are high capacity solar cells to recharge the equipment in the bag.

What about the cortical stimulators that were used in TNG, DS9 and Voyager quite frequently?

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Cortical_stimulator

Were they only used in Sickbay or Infirmary scenes? They would be small enough to be carried in the Medikit, as a last resort device. Or do people think they would be too power intensive (essentially a neural equivalent to a defibrillator).

Similar device, or the same one in a monitoring capacity, would be a neural monitor.

Here's a quote of what a medikit(s) contains from the TNG Technical Manual.

Page 148, Section 13.2 Medical Systems

"Medical personnel on Away Team Missions or other assignments away from sickbay facilities are frequently issued any of a variety of medikits. These portable equipment packages typically include a medical tricorder, field hypospray, respirator, defib module, sample kit, and selection of bandages and drugs for emergency field use."

Here's the equivalent quote from the DS9 Technical manual.

Page 115, Section 13.3 Emergency Medical Operations

"The most compact emergency care system is the portable medical kit. Also adapted from standard-issue starship medical gear, the medikit is equiped to perform scanning, diagnostic, and treatment functions, plus database management and computer interface operations. The medikit normally contains one medical tricorder, two multimode hyposprays, one dermal regenerator, one blood infuser, one defibrillator, one PADD, and one neural stimulator. The case also houses a variety of injectable fluids, bandages, device powerpacks, 6.5-kiloquad isolinear processor, and sub-space transceiver."

Does this help? Actually, I think we have all just about covered what is mentioned above in our discussions!:) (Or were you thinking of this from your discussion Dan?)

Mark

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Originally Posted by trynda1701

What about the cortical stimulators that were used in TNG, DS9 and Voyager quite frequently?

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Cortical_stimulator

Were they only used in Sickbay or Infirmary scenes? They would be small enough to be carried in the Medikit, as a last resort device. Or do people think they would be too power intensive (essentially a neural equivalent to a defibrillator).

Similar device, or the same one in a monitoring capacity, would be a neural monitor.

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Hmm. Well, Nog could drive Keevan's corpse around like a Volkswagon using the neural stimulators in his medkit...