Medic Archive
Thread: Medic Business Model
This may be old news, but I have found a business model that has served me well as a young medic.
When arriving at a relatively crowded hospital, you quickly hear patients clamoring for medical care. I sort through the mess by annoucing I will treat "tipping" patients first. I can usually quicly establish a queue of people who I will give treatment to and who will in turn provide tips for my sustinence. On this line of paying paying patients is exhausted, I will move on to players seeking free treatment, if time permits.
I have had a few cases where players promised to tip and did not. I will email these characters a RPed "bill", and if I do not receive some sort of compensation or a valid explanation, they are blacklisted.
I like this approach to because it allows you to RP a doctors role in SWG. Players with medical insurance (i.e. tipping) are given first priority, and free care (non-tipping) is provided in free clinics, or at the doctors discretion.
I have been able to slowly finance my medical education this way, and I would encourage other medics to follow suit. It helps the community to appreciate our profession and pay for the valuable service we provide.
Vishek Hunaman- Cornellia, Shadowfire
Sounds like a good model.
However, I work differently. I'm stationed in Bestine, which is radically different from how Corellia works. In Corellia/Coronet (at least in my experience on another server) there is a mixed population of rebels and Imperials, infrequent battling/raiding, and mostly it's players going out into the countryside hunting or on missions. In Bestine, we've got an intense military-type situation; daily raids between Anchorhead (held by rebels) and Bestine (held by Imperials).
So, from my perspective as a military doctor (medic still, actually) in Bestine, I'm not charging for services...I'm doing my job, healing my men, getting them out the door to fight the terrorists again. I get really good tips, I think. (I don't know what others would consider good, but it's about 5K per day. Compared with doing beginner-level artisan crafting for a living, it's great!) And I haven't had to pay for a single lick of training, because there are so many medics/doctors eager to advance, and SO much work to go around. The med center is constantly jammed with patients. It's very exciting, actually, and gives a good RP flavor even when no one but me is RPing.
I also sell stim Bs on the side to a business man who sells them on the bazaar. I get my crafting xp, plus money, he provides resources.
I think different RP situations call for different business models. Today, during the rebel raid on Bestine, I was letting patients know that anyone who was going back out to fight the terrorist scum would get first priority.
I heal rebels, too, when they come in, and they tip me. I just roleplay that as "Guards, thank you for bringing the prisoner...now for more experimentation..."
Forgot to say, my character is Maritra, on Shadowfire. Stop by the Bestine med center any time for fun firefights and raids 
P.S. Most amusing thing that happened today...a soldier who was poisoned and diseased during today's raid asked me to mercy-kill him in the med center to end his afflictions. It's so sad when we have to pull the plug, but it's all in a day's work...
one thing i have noticed more and more latley is docs not fully healing
i tip well upto 1k depending on wounds well i think this is an ok amount
i have taken to spliting the tip, half up front and half on completion
you woulod be supprised the amount that dont get the final tip when some one else bothers to heal the final 10 15 wouunds gets the other half
but geez why do so many not bother to fully heal
Alot of the time, I usually leave wounds that are less than 20, especially on secondary stats, simply because they are a waste of a Wound pack shot, and doesn't adversly effect the play in any way because the wound is only slight and not worth treating untill it had got worse.
Some people will stay in the med center and moan at me / other medics when they heal all of their Health & action, and leave say 20 quickness or 5 strength wounds. It simply is a waste of money.
giz-zard wrote:
one thing i have noticed more and more latley is docs not fully healing
i tip well upto 1k depending on wounds well i think this is an ok amount
i have taken to spliting the tip, half up front and half on completion
you woulod be supprised the amount that dont get the final tip when some one else bothers to heal the final 10 15 wouunds gets the other half
but geez why do so many not bother to fully heal
Dr Ihohea Di-Kartana pretty much says it all. I can usually heal around 100+ wounds in health/action with one heal. I can typically heal more than 60 secondary wounds with one heal. It's a waste of our money and woundpacks to heal those little wounds.
Let me clarify that last sentence a little. You are probablysaying toyourself, "I'm going to tip them if they'd just finish, so it doesn't make sense that they're losing money!" I would agree with you on this, depending on the tip. The problem liesin two main dilemmas.
1.) Most people want to be completely healed, we accomodate them, and many, many times they will leave without tipping.
2.) Many people hate it when doctors/medics ask for tips in advance, so many of us don't ask for it and just hope. Doctors don't have as much problem with asking up front because they don't need the xp, but medics don't have that luxury.
After a while, the medic/doctor will either become tired of having to ask for tips and having people berate them for it because "we get xp for healing", or become tired of using woundpacks on people that they used resources to make or bought them off the bazaar and then have those people just leave without tipping.
This, of course, leads to a lot ofmedics/docs toheal as effectively as we can (without wasting our supplies) and then move on to another patient in hopes that they will tip us. This has nothing to do with you. It's how some in the medic profession try to protect themselves from being "used."
You say you tip half up front and half after. Do you tell them you are going to do this? Very, very, very few people tip more than once for a task. Do you tell them how much you will pay them?
By the way, if a person is already healing you, don't announce to the world that you will pay again for finishing the job - send them a /tell. If you announce it, scavengers will most likely arrive to try and take it from the poor medic that's been helping you.
My statements are in no way trying to bash you giz-zard, as I'm sure you pay quite well and still get poor service sometimes. They were to let people (who are unaware of our situation) know why some in the medical profession are doing this. By the way, those little wounds heal by themselves in the med center.
I, personally, will ask the person I'm healing if they care about those last few wounds. Most will tell me they don't. For the others, I heal them at the cost of mindwounds to myself, as those will heal with time and woundpacks are only replaced with money. I hope this explanation allows you to better understand why "so many not bother to fully heal."