Every dwarf has a task to do and a profession to master in Dwarf Fortress. Especially when it comes to the game’s wild nature, we may see many injuries and deaths. At this point, the Dwarf Fortress doctor profession is one step ahead of other professions.
Providing first aid to your dwarves who are injured or dying after a serious battle will greatly boost your colony’s morale. Moreover, if your colony has a doctor or surgeon with high medical skills, mortality rates will likewise decrease. In order to ensure that you benefit from all these positive effects, we have explained in detail about doctors and medical skills in our guide.
Hospital
Since you have done some research on Dwarf Fortress doctor, it likely means that you already have a simple hospital. If you have not built a hospital, you can also take a look at the article we have prepared before.
Before proceeding with doctor appointments and explanations, you must meet all hospital requirements. If beds, tables, chests and everything else are ready, we can examine doctor skills one by one.
Dwarf Fortress Doctor Skills and Appointments
There are 6 doctor professions in total in Dwarf Fortress, including the chief medical dwarf. Furthermore, there are some specific tasks that each professional skill can do in the hospital. For example, a doctor with surgeon skills takes part in the most demanding operations and treats syndromes in the patient’s internal organs. Let’s take a quick look at how appointments are made before we take a closer look at other medical skills.
- To appoint a doctor, you must first appoint a chief medical dwarf to your hospital from the “Nobles and administrators” page. This will open the other profession classes page.
- If you look at the home page of the hospital after you have appointed the chief physician, you will see that you can make appointments in four different professions. These professions are; Doctor, Diagnostician, Surgeon and Bone Doctor.
- To appoint any dwarf with these doctor skills, you’ll need to click on the “+” sign. Then, a list of all your dwarves will appear.
- From this list, you can now make appointments one by one by selecting the dwarves suitable for their medical skills.
It is very important to choose according to the skills of your dwarves when making a Dwarf Fortress doctor appointment. Because, having a dwarf without medical skills as a doctor will naturally be of no use to you. If you’re new to the game, you probably won’t have a dwarf with doctor skills in your colony at first. For this, you need to analyze the caravans and the dwarves who want to migrate to you in detail. Sometimes, if you are under the influence of mass migration and if you are a little lucky, a few doctors may want to take refuge in your fortress.
Medical Skills
After completing the doctor’s appointments, we can now take a look at the medical skills belonging to this profession class. Because the most important part about being a doctor starts here.
- Diagnostician
The Diagnostician skill is related to the diagnosis labor, which can appear in the doctor in the game. If a dwarf with a doctor’s ability has diagnostician skill, they can easily determine how to treat all other dwarves in the hospital. The Diagnostician examines and researches injured dwarfs, determining the most appropriate treatment and aiding their recovery.
- Surgeon
The surgeon skill is a very rare surgery labor in the game. Using the tables and traction benches you place in your hospital, surgeons can perform even the most complex operations. For example, you may need a highly professional surgeon to prevent damage to the internal organs of a dwarf who has swallowed an Adamantine Nugget. For surgeons, skill level is highly correlated with the success rate of surgery. There are also serious factors such as infection in the survival of the patient after surgery.
- Bone Doctor
Your dwarves can sometimes be injured by hard work and sometimes by wrong moves. Moreover, your dwarfs carrying too much weight can break their arms. To repair a broken arm, you need a doctor with “setting bones” skills. The bone doctor uses items such as splints, plaster casts and traction benches in the hospital to immobilize the body and allow the broken bone to heal completely. Just like surgeons, the success of the bone doctor in the treatment process depends on their experience.
- Suturing (Suturer)
Another skill that Dwarf Fortress doctors can have is suturing labor. Suturers are responsible for everything from suturing simple wounds in hospitals to suturing the most complicated surgical wounds. The suturers skill is related to the infection and the speed of completing the suture process. The later the wound is treated, the higher the risk of bleeding and infection. At the same time, the quality of the yarn Suturers uses is also very important. If your dwarf has a leg or any limb severed, Suturers needs to have the Legendary skill level if they want to stitch it back in place. In short, the more complicated the suturing process becomes, the higher the skill level of the Suturers should be.
- Dressing Wounds (Wound dresser)
Wound Dresser is not actually a skill that doctors should do. Any villager can become a Wound Dresser if they have the skill. For this, it will be sufficient to have water, bandages, soap and cloth in the hospital. In particular, it is vital that a doctor with the Wound Dresser skill is on duty to minimize the risk of post-operative infection. Otherwise, you may lose your injured dwarfs from the infection.
