fandom_clinic | Fandom Clinic, Friday

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Fandom Clinic, Friday

Thanks to her conversation with Steve on Wednesday (aka Sergeant Sexy), Cristina was looking through some of Fandom's records. They were bizarrely sparse, even accounting for HIPAA, and many of them were stained with things that Cristina finally decided she didn't want to know about, and there were at least five different alphabets used. Or five different really atrocious handwriting styles. Even accounting for doctors.

"Okay. Someone please tell me this doesn't actually say the patients were all cured by hugs."

Sure, there was all the research about deep pressure suppressing the nervous system and calming people suffering acute anxiety attacks -- she'd used that method herself a number of times, thanks to Dr. Dixon. But that didn't make them a cure for flu-like symptoms. Or brainwashing.

"Alright, project for the day," Cristina announced when her eyes started to hurt from trying to decipher the notes. "Or . . . for the decade." She waved her hand at the piles of manila folders around her. "We're going to digitize all this. Bring this place into the 21st century and out of --" Were these notes seriously about humors? "-- Medieval Europe. No canasta until we're done."

Sure, it was basically scut, and Cristina was not an administrator, but if she pretended she was the Chief of Surgery, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. . . .

[open!]

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Hey, Kanan had said he'd be by at some point with a medpac, and after his training session in the park, why not? So here he was with a small case containing some bacta patches, synthflesh, spray bandages, some assorted stimshots, a few irrigation bulbs and other assorted emergency medical supplies.

"Hey, she is in today," he said, nodding as he stepped inside and giving her a little wave. "Island managed to drive you up a wall yet, Dr. Yang?"

"It does that just by existing," Cristina said, setting aside the records of something that apparently involved a girl mummified in duct tape. "Stocking up on supplies? Or do I get to play with a sample of your local remedy?"

"These are entirely for playing with purposes," Kanan said, holding the kit out as he walked over to her. "Mostly supplies for quick patching up, but there's some bacta, which I think you'll like. That's the good stuff. I'd have some pretty ugly scars today if it wasn't for that."

Not that he was in any hurry to spend a few weeks in a bacta tank ever again. But he was thankful that it existed, at least.

"Bacta, huh?" Cristina said. "Sounds like they should advertise it on the tv with a giant list of side effects." She didn't sound upset about that in any way, though. "Most of the rest this stuff looks pretty familiar." An irrigation bulb was an irrigation bulb. She was assuming the spray stuff was disinfectant.

"Well, that's good to hear," Kanan replied. "I have no idea what standard medical care is like around here. The last time I wound up in here, they poured coffee down my throat until I came around again."

He rolled his eyes at that. No, coffee wasn't considered standard medical practice where he was from, either.

Also, it wasn't caf.

"Coffee," Cristina said, looking around at the notes. "I can't decide if that's better or worse than hugs."

"Well, I came to consciousness again with coffee down the front of my shirt, choking on it," Kanan noted, "so I'm going to go with it depending on who might be doing the hugging."

"They didn't even use an NG tube?! I knew I was in a backwater hellhole, but come on!"

"They handed cups of it out to friends and loved ones and let them deal with it," Kanan sighed. "I'm not entirely sure what the nurses do here."

He at least had the good sense to drop his voice down low enough that hopefully they couldn't hear.

"They play canasta." Cristina did not bother lowering her voice. "And not even very well."

"Even when there are a half-dozen people laying in comas in the beds," Kanan sighed. "Makes me thankful for medpacs."

A pause.

"And a real doctor. The novelty hasn't worn off of that, yet."

"Good. I've barely even gotten the chance to do any doctoring." She looked over the medpac again. "What's this language? I don't recognize it."

"The alphabet is called Aurebesh," Kanan explained, wincing a little. Right. High Galactic. Oh, Earth. "It's more or less a letter-swap of the alphabet you're used to, except for a few characters. If you have paper and a pen, I can write out a key for you to translate with."

Heh. He hadn't had to write out his Aurek-Besh-Creshes since he was a youngling.

Cristina tilted her head and shrugged. "Yeah, alright. Though that won't help with the ingredients lists much if you're not using latinates."

"Pretty sure we're not using latinates," Kanan replied, after a pause. "That's what the indecipherable stuff is on most food packages too, right? Either way, some of those ingredients aren't likely to make much sense."

He waved a hand at the bacta patches.

"Take that, for example. Bacta's.... bacta."

"You don't break it down into its component parts, huh?" Cristina asked. "Is it naturally occurring, then? Or is that just not how things get labelled in your culture?"

"Bacta's mostly synthetic," Kanan replied. "It replaced kolto a while ago, which can, occur naturally, but bacta's far more efficient, a stronger healing agent in the first place."

He waved a hand at it.

"There aren't exactly variants on it, is the thing. It's made in one place, the resources don't exist anywhere else, and the most information you'll find on it is generally what grade it is."

"Pharmacological monopoly, huh?" Cristina said with a nod. "Do I have to worry about someone trying to sue me for violating patent law if I try to duplicate it?"

"I don't think that'll be a concern," Kanan replied, shrugging. "You could even market it, I doubt they'd ever know."

He paused.

"Hell, it'd be great if you could replicate it. The stuff is great. If slimy."

"It'll give me something useful to do," Cristina said, smiling. "It's not a heart, but it's not like we've got a bunch of MI's around here for me to operate on."

She was still poking at that spray bandage, though.

"I'm not going to cause a biohazard if I try spraying this one something, am I?"

"What, that? Nah, that's just a bandage," he replied, easily. "You can spray that on anything you like, it's sterile."

"Nah." Cristina set it aside again. "We've got liquid bandages. I'll see if you use a different formula, but it'd just be a pain to clean it up if I sprayed it out here." She pointed to the stim-shots. "Epinephrine?"

"No idea what that is," Kanan admitted, grimacing. "Epinephrine, I mean. Those are stim shots. Different shots do different things. Most of those are to try to level out things like heart rate, or to reduce swelling, for what it's worth. Their uses are printed on them. There might be an adrenal in there or two. Basically what it sounds like, there."

"Epinephrine is adrenaline," Cristina explained. "We use epipens -- predosed, single use shots, kind of like these -- for people who are at risk of severe allergic reactions. They can carry them with them and, you know, not die on the floor of a restaurant if they accidentally eat a peanut."

"Stims and adrenals," Kanan replied, nodding. "Okay, so they're not far off from that, then. This medpack is more suited to combat situations- shrapnel removal and burn treatments, but there are some things in there for reactions like you're describing, too."

Because anything could happen when rebelling in space.

Cristina nodded. "My ex-husband was a trauma surgeon for the army. You've got to prioritize the quick and dirty in those kinds of cases."

"I've seen a lot of quick and dirty," Kanan noted. "Saved a few lives with one of these. Had my own saved, too."

He nodded toward the bacta.

"People call that gunk magic. It's not, of course. It's all growth stimulants and the like. But it can get in deep enough to repair nerve damage and heal serious wounds without a scar if you've got the good stuff. I can see how they'd think that way."

"Nerve damage, huh?" Cristina said. She was maybe starting to have visions of a shiny Harper-Avery award if she managed to replicate this stuff, yes. "How's it usually administered? It's a little thick for an intravenous medication."

"Patches for surface damage," Kanan replied. "Full-immersion for more serious, deeper wounds. If something is serious enough to require a dunk in the tank, the patient will generally be sedated for the duration of their stay."

He wrinkled his nose.

"I spent a few weeks in one, once. It's like taking a nap in snot."

"Immersion," Cristina nodded slowly. "Interesting. I've seen plenty of therapeutic comas, but sustained immersion in anything water-based should cause much more harm than good." She poked the bacta with her finger and lifted it up to examine the texture. "It has to have some serious healing properties if it's keeping up with skin maceration."

"I'm not entirely sure it's water-based," Kanan admitted, squinting at it. "But it can cut healing times by halves, depending on the strength. Those couple of weeks I spent in the tank were treating burn damage. Burn-through-the-torso kind of damage. They put me immediately back on duty when I came out again."

Cristina looked up sharply. "You were burned through your torso, and your recovery time was a matter of weeks?"

Kanan blinked, actually a little taken aback by that.

"Well... yeah. That's..." He blew out a little breath. "Kark me. How long would you expect for an injury like that? Say... about, this wide across?"

He held up two fingers, indicating something about the width of a bullet wound. And then he tapped himself below the clavicle, through his left lung but above his heart, and again in his lower abdomen, where there most certainly would have been some nasty damage to his intestines. He wasn't about to roll up his shirt to show the relative lack of scar tissue, but he wasn't opposed to indicating where it would be.

Cristina's eyebrows climbed higher with each small detail. "Months at least," she said. "Probably years, depending on how much organ damage there was. With burn damage, having to remove the cauterized tissue. . . . I wouldn't anticipate a full return to pre-injury health at all."

Kanan's own eyebrows climbed a little higher, too.

"I, uh. Huh. I didn't realize that."

Apparently he'd been living on Planet Deathtrap for the past couple of years without ever knowing.

"... Keep the bacta. I can get more next time we head back home. If you can find a way to synthesize it, it sounds like you'd be doing a lot of people a lot of good."

"If I can reproduce your results," Cristina said. "I only have your word to go on here. The way you're talking, you'd think this stuff was made of your own stem-cells or something."

And, well. Doctors knew better than anyone: everybody lies. Especially if they want to make themselves sound impressive.

Kanan grimaced a little at that.

"Nah, that's too close to cloning for my comfort," he muttered. "Not that I'd hold it against anyone if it saved lives. They're welcome to it."

He sighed to keep from babbling.

"Do you want a demonstration? I'm not above bleeding for a few minutes if it means you'll know you can trust it in an emergency situation."

What a waste of a bacta patch.

"I'm capable of performing my own experiments," Cristina assured him. Though she wasn't sure how just yet without reminding herself far too much of the crazy intern cabal from her second year of residency. "I might joke around, but I'm not actually a fan of people deliberately hurting themselves or each other just so I can fix them."

"I actually appreciate that," Kanan replied, smiling wryly. "Tell you what... if you're still not sure, next time I come by an injury honestly, you can test it out then, if you haven't already. It's bound to happen sooner or later."

Because he was good, but accidents still happened. Explosions were always going to be a thing.

"That's not great experimental protocol." It was a sample size of one, and unless he wanted to let her only treat half his injury, there was no control. For all she knew, he just healed freakishly fast. "But sure. Let's do that."

"It's not great, but it's what I've got to work with," Kanan replied, shrugging. "'Scientist' is one thing I've never been over the years. But bacta isn't cheap, and we end up giving a lot of our medical supplies away, so I don't have many other suggestions, myself."

They gave away most of those med supplies, in fact.

"If you can figure out a more reliable way to test it, let me know. I'll see what I can do to get some more if you need it."

"I'm sure we'll get some scrapes and bruises we can try it on," Cristina said. "Even on an island with no cars, people can't go around totally uninjured all the time. In the meantime, I'll take a look at some small samples, see if I can work out what it's made of."

She had a PhD in biochemistry. She had no doubt she could figure out what was in it. She was going to be pretty mad when she figured out it was from space, though.

Mad, but just think of the prestige!

"That works too," Kanan agreed. "Feel free to keep that, to poke at the contents of the entire kit. I'll get that Aurebesh key written out for you so you have some idea of what each thing is, and maybe you'll find something else in there that's just as interesting."

Synthflesh was pretty exciting, for example.

... It also had bacta in it.

It was hard to feel prestigious when you spent weeks struggling to identify a substance that literally came from another planet. Especially when you were under the assumption that it was just from the next continent on south.

"I will," Cristina said, giving Kanan a smile. "Thank you. This will be much more interesting than digitizing these records."

The nurses, all crowded around computers and resenting being ordered to do data entry, relaxed. Cristina didn't even look up.

"Much more interesting for me, you all are still on scut until further notice!" She looked at Kanan and sighed. "They're actually making me miss interns."

Well, if it was synthetic, there was nothing saying the chemicals in it couldn't be duplicated! Only... the process might be a little different, that's all.

Kanan didn't even bother trying not to smirk at that.

"A little actual work will do them some good. Card games are for the cantina, not the medcenter."

"And even then, you should at least be playing, like, poker or something. My mom plays canasta."

"I was wondering why I don't hear about that one often," Kanan mused. "I suppose it figures it's a game with an age limit."

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