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Posted by: LurkerOutThere Apr 17 2011, 12:19 PM

So i have a character who's a medic and i'm rather taken with the idea of mounting a biomonitor in his hand(seems logical) or his skull (a little more of a stretch) so he can use it on patients. Any thoughts on the legality of such? I can't find anything that expressly forbids or permits it and considering it says right in the text they can be put into clothing or hand carried I can't see a logical problem

Biomonitor: This compact device measures life signs—heart
rate, blood pressure, temperature, and so on. The biomonitor can also
analyze blood, sweat, and skin samples. Used by medical services and
patients who need to monitor their own health, biomonitors can be
worn as an armband or wristband or integrated into clothing.

While i'm on the subject I thought there was a bonus for having a biomonitor when performing first aid but now I can't seem to find it so it may be a moot point.

Posted by: DWC Apr 17 2011, 02:07 PM

Wouldn't an implanted biomonitor only monitor the vitals of the person it is implanted in? If you want that sort of information on a patient at a moment's notice, it seems like you'd need to attach it to the patient.

And the thing you're looking for is the biofabric armband. I'm pretty sure it's buried in Arsenal's gear section.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 17 2011, 02:22 PM

Yup: Biofabric in Arsenal, reduces Threshold for Diagnosis test by 1.

Posted by: Dahrken Apr 17 2011, 03:02 PM

In order to operate as a medic, you need several other tools and and external container of some sort to carry them so why not put your health monitoring tool in it rather than permanently grafting it into your body ?

Also cleaning/serilizing the probes when switching from a patient to another can be problematic if they are implanted.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Apr 17 2011, 09:47 PM

Dahren: Partially so i'll always have it with me. Partially for rule of cool. I'm also looking for the means to have his medkit on him at all times like built into a cyberarm or such but so far that's a bit more hazy.

This setting has technology that can read and implant brain waves through the persons hair, skin, and skull with complete accuracy similar to that of an implanted physical link. Pulling someone's vitals without the need for actual physical connection should be relatively child's play. We already have a lot of that technology now.

Kind of irrelevant as now biomonitors don't do anything by the letter of the rules, and even then the advanced medtech rules arn't used in missions, oh well.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Apr 18 2011, 02:26 AM

Well, they do have the Medkit, which does have a game effect for diagnosing and treating others, but installing that costs essence.



-k

Posted by: Dahrken Apr 18 2011, 05:14 AM

You still need a physical contact of the sensors with the person for them to work, and if one of your hands (or worse, your head !) is stuck touching the person to keep the thing in place updating the infos you have a hard time working on him/her/it.

What I woulde suggest would be an internal comlink running the medical software, and some kind of body compartment (in a cyberlimb maybe) to store a wireless sensor kit you leave in place on the person. This way your hands are free, and you can work with Augmented Reality help. You can even carry one extra set or three to keep an eye on everyone while working on multiple patients at the same time. Add some infrared eye option for thermal and blood flow monitoring, some image enhancement, hearing and smell boosts (and maybe tactile) to help you catch symptoms and you're good to go.

As for carrying your medical equipement all the times, most clothes have pockets you know, and some have lots of them.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 18 2011, 01:02 PM

If only there was some kind of wireless sensor you could put on their body… like a biofabric patch or armband. It costs 500¥, buy 6.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Apr 18 2011, 01:15 PM

Admitedly at this point i'm mostly lamenting the in universe stupidity. In order to make sure that mages wouldn't be left out of the matrix arena they put something in universe that transmits and recieves signals perfectly through the human body of comparable bandwidth to a directly linked fiberoptic cable, but they cannot make a short range sensor. Or put another way, I can have a sensor in my head capabile of radar imaging the number and shape of targets in the next room but by the letter of the law I need to implant or have a patient wear a similar device to get a scan on if they have a broken bone, despite the fact that it's a technology we already have today.

Put another way: Under what circumstances could you ever see a character voluntarily giving up .3 essence for a implanted biomonitor?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Apr 18 2011, 01:51 PM

It depends on what you're diagnosing. Biomonitors do this: "life signs—heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and so on. The biomonitor can also analyze blood, sweat, and skin samples."

Even in 2070, I don't think you can get blood chemistry or anything from a remote sensor, but you could see broken bones (and heart rate, respiration, sure). Probably not BP, maybe not accurate internal temp (thermo vision is mostly vision, not clinical tool, after all). Don't forget that broken bones barely exist in SR4, because it's an abstracted game.

I think the point that you don't need to waste one whole hand on this is a great one; you're gonna want two hands. If you don't want the biofabric, the actual biomonitor is only 300¥; there's no reason to think it's not a little disc you slap on their neck, wrist, whatever.

Posted by: Hida Tsuzua Apr 18 2011, 06:10 PM

Considering how awesome medkits are in the shadowrun universe, I assume medkits have something that's basically a Star Trek medical tricorder. So that lets you have your tricorder for the purpose of rule of cool (which I heartily agree). One way to have it implanted in you is to use a modular cyberlimb hand with built in medkit. Then you can wave your hand over and diagnosis and heal. You have to get a cyberhand and pay 7500-7600Y for it though (depending if the hand is obvious or synthetic). It's also a rating 6 medkit so that's nothing to sneeze at.

Posted by: Wasabi Apr 21 2011, 11:55 AM

You could also get a biofabric glove over a cyberhand and when you touch the patient the patient is the only one being interacted with via biofabric. With the same ease as checking the pulse you could tell all kinds of things with a bonus to diagnosis. Its not Star Trek level of cool but still pretty spiffy.

Posted by: Stahlseele Apr 24 2011, 05:03 PM

Sounds reasonable.
Sounds like the Glove-Thingie the female Doc in Earth2 used O.o

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Apr 25 2011, 10:21 PM

Yea i do like that thought was looking for a rules legal cyber implant route but this may work better for missions. I'll just cost it out like an urban explorer jumpsuit just to be completely on the legal side and go from there.