“Good morning, please state the nature of the medical difficulty. *pause* Please rate the pain on a scale of 1-to-5. *pause* Please specify whether any of the following actions increase the pain *series of pokes, prods and thumps* *Processing* You are fine, please take this placebo and return in one week if symptoms do not improve”
—Medical Diagnostic Terminal
The department of Health looks after residents of the ship from birth to the point they're handed over to Recycling. With the vast knowledge of the Computer on hand (and the convenient lack of necessity for geriatric care) their jobs are relatively straightforward, but people always seem to find new and interesting ways to break themselves. Basic analysis is usually performed by the computer, by a combination of physical analysis and set questions, with human doctors often not needed at all.
“Every case is different, that's why they still need us humans, we can think on our feet you see”
— unknown surgeon.
Surgeons, usually specialist in one field or another, are generally what people think of when they think of the department of Health. Their job is to put humans back together when accidents happen, usually under the close eye of the Computer, or occasionally dealing with particularly problematic cases which regular diagnostic solutions have failed to cure. This also includes Emergency Medical Technicians, for when the engineers inevitably impale themselves on something in a part of the ship that's hard to reach. In addition to knowing how to put someone's insides back in with a staple gun and duct tape, EMTs also have to be part firefighter, part engineer and part explorer in order to locate and reach their casualties. EMTs are renowned for their hatred of BOBs, blaming them for over 50% of the accidents they attend.
Part surgeon, part engineer, but mostly entirely their own thing, these individuals are experts at treating the particular problems which cybernetically enhanced people can encounter, though even they cannot fix everything. Nonetheless, they are invaluable to those they treat, and even a minor infection can go badly wrong when flesh and technology meet.
All mental health treatments are carefully tailored to the individual, the posters say. Some doctors are counsellors, advisors, almost friends. Some will blankly prescribe some strangely-coloured pills and advise not reading the potential side-effect list. Some will liaise with Harmony and prescribe 'fun fun fun to keep you out of your rut!' while others will quietly sympathise and merely suggest that you 'try not to think about it'. It very much depends on which one you get, and there are members with strong factional leanings who are not afraid of bringing their beliefs to bear at work.
While much education content is delivered by Computer in bite sized chunks for each individual learner, research has shown that a human presence in the class room correlates highly with positive pedagogical outcomes. — Educators' education manual
That is to say someone still needs to sit there and make sure the little blighters behave themselves; and give the terminals a good kicking when they break down. — Unnamed educator
Care and raising of children falls under the remit of the Department of Health. There are some more details in childcare. A child will be expected to spend the majority of their time in the Creche area up until the age of approximately twelve, though small children are often in a slightly separate area to the older. After age 12, children begin apprenticeships, learning more about the departments the Computer has advised they will likely work in and beginning to gain hands-on experience.
Educators generally associate to one of a number of levels: