v0.31 Talk:Chief medical dwarf

I started out with a dwarf 4x Novice and 1x Adequate in the 5 medic skills. After 3 years of little to not using them, this is left: 3xdabbling 1x novice. This is supposed to apply to all skills and makes sense. It questions however if it useful at all to embark with medic skills. 3 of the skills I could actually replace with immigrants who had higher skills anyway. --Birthright 00:50, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Relevant Skills

If you check relevant skills when setting your chief medical dwarf it's only diagnosis, does this mean this noble is ONLY in charge of diagnosing? can someone verify what this noble does?

He orders your medical dwarves to perform diagnosis/surgery/suturing/etc. His function is similar to that of an arsenal dwarf in that none of your medics will do anything without his say so. Im not sure if he is the only one who can perform diagnosis. I embarked on my current fort with a chief medical dwarf with +2 in all medical proffesions, and he seems to do a pretty good job at patching up dwarves, except for surgery wich is bugged.

Other dwarves with the Diagnose labor enabled can diagnose successfully. I usually have several dwarves with diagnosis enabled, and as my Chief Medical Dwarf also has the other doctoring labors enabled, the Chief is rarely the one actually doing the diagnosis and instead is typically performing treatment on someone. I've actually been kinda curious where the "only the chief medical dwarf can diagnose" idea came from, as it's all over the healthcare page and the forums, but completely counter to my own experience. --

I can confirm other dwarves can diagnose. The chief medical dwarf however gives more detailed health screen information if his skill is higher. A novice will tell you who has broken tissue or is starving/dehydrated, for instance, but one with a higher skill level will even tell you if a dwarf is feeling peckish (chef medical dwarf?). Sergius 16:15, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I think speed is the major factor with the skill level. I can confirm too that the chief doesn't have to be the one to diagnose; I have one that's fairly useless, and the other doctors get the job done. In fact, they've all been useless, and I hesitate to promote the one ace doctor who handles it all while everyone else is standing around picking their asses because he may become useless, too. Uzu Bash 11:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)