That’s pretty much exactly what Anna would say.
(I got his name wrong here– it ought to say, “Hidoshi”, not “Hitomi”. Although I won’t re-post a minor correction like this, rest assured I’ve already made the fix in my files and the correct version will appear in the print edition, when it’s ready.)
Anna doesn’t look too good… :/
SOMEONE needs a funny hat.
Anna looks better than I expected of someone who was right next to the explosion. We don’t know when she might wake up, but from her treatment I think the doctor doesn’t expect her to get worse.
How far in the future is this? I ask because, if I saw this page out of context – without knowing anything about Galaxion, I could almost mistake this for an ultra-modern 21′st century ER treatment room. Almost.
Don’t get me wrong: The page art is high quality and the writing is excellent. But this isn’t quite what I expected of a starship medical ward.
The medical bed looks typical of a modern hospital. The intravenous and monitoring equipment looks a bit unusual, but it still strikes me as rather ordinary. (Nothing like Star Trek or Star Wars. Though, in the Battlestar Galactical remake I seem to recall them using medical equipment that looked similar to what’s used today.)
Any contingencies in case the ship looses artificial gravity? A backup? Is the bed latched or clamped to the floor? The IV appears to be gravity-fed…
In panel 2, on the table behind the captain, right next to the chair: Is that a stereotypical glass jar of cotton swabs? Next to it, is that a tongue depressor dispenser?
Cotton swabs suggests that they still use them with disposable syringes to inject intravenous medicines. So, they never were able to perfect the “hypospray” jet injector?
Jet injectors were used to dispense vaccines. But they were discontinued over concerns of contamination of the equipment, with a possibility of spreading a blood-borne pathogen. But technology marches on. I’d be surprised if the jet injector doesn’t make a comeback one day after someone finds a solution. (BTW: A few years ago a “nasal mist” option for flu vaccines became available. It takes just one spray in each nostril.)
I was kind of expecting to see a robot surgeon arm. Robot surgery is available today. However, this is seems to be a recovery room. And surgery equipment might be kept in a surgery room. (BTW: Do they use laser scalpels?)
The highest medical tech we’ve seen is the hand-print recognition (also available today) and (seen on previous page) extremely advanced medical imaging. I imagine the latter is a very advanced, compact descendant of the CT Scan or CAT/MRI technology.
That said, from the bottom panel of the previous page and panel 6 of this page, I want to assume that each room has walls and sliding doors that can become opaque or transparent. That is, similar to Transition Lenses, but electrical and with full control of transparency. (Though, again, this is available today. It’s called “electrochromic smart glass” or “e-glass”.)
I suppose they might have something like medical nanites. But I doubt it, considering how long the doctor’s prognosis was for recovery. Weeks?
Moore and Eick’s Galactica? Well, their approach to medicine seemed…deliberately parallel to real-worlds depictions. They left some things we’re capable of in the real worlds off the table because of technological and political consequences of that first Cylon War fought by the Twelve Colonies, of course. Networking of the sort we’ve made ourselves accustomed to was considered inviting suicide by Cylon in that context. Galaxion‘s humans have not endured those kinds of trauma as a species, of course.
The early hyposprays were nothing like on _Star Trek_; among other things, they were a bit like putting the muzzle of an air-rifle into direct contact with the skin and firing it, they left an ugly bleeding wound and a painful surrounding bruise that took significant time to heal, and any contaminants on the skin were forced directly into the bloodstream and underlying tissue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector
You’re making an awful lot of assumptions based on the fact that we see a jar on a table. Also, it seems like you’re letting Star Trek and Star Wars (which are both closer to science-fantasy than science-fiction) color your views of what’s “futuristic” a bit much. We’ve seen no evidence so far that advanced nanotechnology exists in Galaxion, and frankly, a modern hospital bed is a whole lot more advanced than the flat, uncomfortable-looking pallets that we usually see in Star Trek.
I don’t think you should assume the IV is gravity fed just because it is attached vaguely above the patient. Where else would it go?
This really looks about right. If the bed is attached to the floor, then the mounting hardware will be mostly or entirely at the floor: magnetic clamps or gecko-mimic clamps, for instance. The IV might be gravity fed, or it might be pressure-regulator fed: that the lines run from above the bed only means that it’s out of the way without being vulnerable to things falling off the bed. The equivalent of cotton swabs will be important for hypo-sprays (to decontaminate the skin: then might even work as a sandpaper replacement, depending on medical practice), and the equivalent of tongue-depressors for… pushing the tongue out of the way.
Robo-surgeons do indeed belong in… the surgery room, not private patient/long-term patient rooms. Laser scalpels (multiple frequencies, even) are presumably part of the equipment, but physical scalpels greatly resembling current forms would be available as well. Medical nanites might be available, but either they won’t be omni-purpose, or they will require very specialized medical oversight that a starship isn’t likely to have the staff trained for.
As for advanced medical devices, Anna might have some on her forehead, or one inserted into soft tissue.
Compared to a modern hospital there is surprisingly little crap around the bed, it’s all integrated into the panel on the wall. And it’s all rather ambiguous what it does, for example I see nothing that implies the drip is gravity fed.
I am not bothered by the apparently antiquated technology myself. Many things don’t change with time as they have attained an optimum design shape and will continue to function at optimum efficency for many years.
One prime example is the sheath knife. The design hasn’t changed for over two thousand years and counting.
The only real change has been the materials out of which it is constructed and the sheath to carry it.
I love those chairs!