fandomhigh | Entries tagged with health

This was probably not the professor the class was expecting when they walked into the room. Luckily for them, said professor had Planeswalked to Ravnica for a shower this morning and therefore was in a much better mood than she might otherwise have been, had she not been able to do so. (Even luckier for them, said professor's fiancé was awake much earlier than she and had managed to stop her from getting into a shower on the island, and so she hadn't been drenched with either wine nor mocha.)

"Hello class," Liliana said. "Dr. Blake kindly took over one of my classes this semester and, in exchange, I promised to teach one of his. I am not a doctor and my health education was certainly very different than his, but one thing I did learn was knife and herb healing. There are a great many medicinal plants across the multiverse; many of them are also poisonous in the wrong dosage or from the wrong part, but that's a different class. Instead, I'm here to tell you about some of the more common medicinal herbs and plants you can find here on Earth and then show you how to use them."

Which wasn't as robust as if she were to do a class on Dominarian medicinal herbs, but a lot more useful.

( Yes, the necromancer is talking about healing herbs. )

ifwebeworthy

"Let's talk about sleep," Don declared. "Sleep is so important to your overall health, as is getting good sleep. Most people need about eight hours a night, and it's important to have a consistent sleep schedule, with a regular bedtime and wake up time." Don was two people. Don had spent ten years in the void. Don did not have anything like a consistent sleep schedule. But hey, do as I say, not as I do, right? "If you're drinking too much caffeine, it can impact your sleep schedule." See also: do as I say. "If you're having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, you can try things to improve your environment, like making it darker or eliminating artificial light sources before bed. That means no scrolling on Vine or whatever it is you kids use these days," he joked. "If you don't get enough sleep, it can really impact your overall mental and physical health. How would you rate your sleep health, and what can you think of that you could do to improve it? Let's brainstorm a little bit. Or you can use this time to take a nap. I won't judge."

ifwebeworthy

Dr. Donald Blake had been having...a week. A week of doing difficult, important, lifesaving surgery? No. A week that had led to this class.

"Today we're gonna watch an educational film," Don told his students. "On...decorating. And the importance of a flared base. And then you can go. Happy Thanksgiving."

ifwebeworthy

"Let's talk about nutrition," Don said to his students today. "Now, this is a complicated area of study, because scientists are discovering new things all the time, and there's a lot of bad information out there besides. Also, everyone's nutritional needs are different, whether that's from one human to another or from one species to another. Thor, for instance, needs to eat a lot more calories than I do, because the Aesir are three times as dense as humans, and that's a lot of mass to maintain. But for the most part, you should try to eat a balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fats. You should try to eat some plants. Plants are good for you. Ideally you should eat less processed foods, things that are made from recognizable ingredients, but I feel like a hypocrite telling you that after the way I ate during my residency."

Don passed out a handout on the subject. "There's more in depth information here, but again, these are more rules than guidelines. You need to do what works best for you. But eat some plants, seriously."

ifwebeworthy

"Today we're going to talk about stress," Don told the class as he passed out handouts on the topic. "Now, stress is a normal part of life, caused by changes or challenges we experience, but sometimes you can experience too much of it, and your body can't handle that very well. It's bad for it. Especially when it's over a long period of time. There are physical symptoms of stress, such as high blood pressure, chest pains, headaches, digestive issues, and mental symptoms, such as anxiety or depression. Over the long term, stress can damage your body and your mind, and it can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as drinking too much, so it's important to manage stress in a healthy way."

Or you could retreat into the void of nonexistence and make your other self deal with the problem. That was totally a healthy way to manage stress, right? No? Just Don?

"Now, what can we do to manage stress? First, while it's impossible to avoid stress completely, it's important to be able to recognize when it is avoidable. Don't invite unnecessary trouble, right? Learning when you need to say 'no' is an important step. Then, if you take care of your body and make sure to make time for things you enjoy and staying connected with others, that can help. And it's always important to know when to reach out and ask for help, whether that's from a friend or a medical professional. Humans are like anything else: if you stress them enough, they snap.

"And on that cheerful note, I'm at the end of our lecture for the day, so does anyone have any questions, or want to talk about any stresses in their lives?"

ifwebeworthy

"Before the break, we talked some about the dangers of sunlight, so as the seasons change I thought it fitting that this week we talk about the dangers of not enough sunlight. Sunlight is important. You need to get enough of it for your body to produce what's called 'vitamin D,' which helps build healthy bones. Luckily, if you're not getting enough vitamin D, your doctor can measure that in a blood test and you can get it in pill form.

"The other thing I want you to be aware of as we move into winter is Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. This is a form of depression that's, well, seasonal. Some people's brains don't handle the shorter days and less light well at all, and they may experience symptoms of depression." Don went on to ~~handwavily~~ list some of the symptoms of depression to watch out for. "This will of course more often affect people who live in more northern climes, where the days are even shorter--or nonexistent in some places that experience polar night--but according to studies about one point four percent of the population of Florida experiences SAD, so you can't rule it out. We don't yet fully understand SAD, but light therapy can help, and if that's not cutting it you should talk to your doctor about antidepressants. Because like with vitamin D, if you can't produce your own, storebought is always fine.

"Now, are there any questions?"

ifwebeworthy

"We're going on a trip soon," Don told his students, "so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to talk about some sun safety information." Especially considering where the trip was going to be to. "A sunburn isn't just a temporary painful inconvenience, although it's definitely also that. The sun emits radiation, which is...another class." Maybe one with Tony Stark. "Over time, damage to your skin from the sun can lead to skin cancer. Wearing protective clothing, like long sleeves and a hat, is a good idea, and you should always wear sunscreen, which is usually found in a lotion form but can also be found in stick or spray format, or even a powder, which is good for things like the part in your hair." Don showed them a bottle and explained that, "This number is the SPF, or sun protection factor, number. The higher it is, the more radiation from the sun the sunscreen will block from getting to your skin.

"I also want to talk about heat exhaustion and heat stroke," Don continued, and proceeded to handwavily discuss those topics in more detail. When he was done he asked, "Are there any questions?" Whether there were or weren't, he wrapped with, "Please take a bottle of sunscreen with you when you leave."

ifwebeworthy

"Okay," Don said. "Today is the day we talk about what in my day they called STDs, but I was dead for awhile and apparently now STIs is the preferred terminology. Don't ever die and then resurrect, by the way, you'll find that they've changed all the terminology on you and discontinued your favorite yogurt, and also your friends have taken sides and staged pitched battles in the middle of Manhattan. Or maybe that's just me.

"Now, the best way of avoiding STIs--and pregnancy--is to not have sex at all, but we're all adults here and I don't think any of us are monks." And what happens behind closed doors in the monasteries is the monks' business, anyway. "So let's talk about the various forms of protection and how to use them."

Don got through the ~~handwavey~~ lecture and banana-involving demo on how to use things like condoms and dental dams with consummate professionalism, and when he finished he asked, "Does anyone have any questions?" before adding, "If you have any questions you don't want to ask in front of the class, you can see me afterwards."

ifwebeworthy

"This week I thought we'd talk about the importance of staying active and exercising," Don told his students. "Living a very sedentary lifestyle, where you don't move around or really do much, physically, is very bad for you. I encourage everyone to at least get out and take a walk every day, especially since with all the stairs on this island you get some bonus exercise built in." So many stairs. "But if you want, adding some extra exercise in might be a good idea. I have some information here on some basic exercises, and there are all sorts of demos and routines you can learn about online on places like Youtube. I won't be doing any demonstrations today because I have a bad leg and my form wouldn't be 'correct,' but that's also an important consideration. You can always modify exercises if they don't work for you because of physical limitations.

"Now, why is it important to exercise? Lots of reasons. In the short term, if the island is invaded by, I don't know, Doombots, you'll want to be strong enough to fight or have enough stamina to run away. In the long term, it improves your overall health and will help to prevent problems later in life. So again, I would recommend at least a walk every day, and maybe some squats or something if you feel like it. You can try out some of the exercises now, if you'd like, but I've never done a burpee, so I can't help with your form or whatever." Thor could, probably. But Thor wasn't here.

ifwebeworthy

"Last week we talked about vaccines," Don told his students. "This week, we're going to talk about why they work, and what causes most forms of disease, which is germs. For centuries, the prevailing theory, in the West, at least, was that miasma, or something bad in the air, caused disease, although in different times and places you saw people starting to see the holes in that theory via observation and logic--noticing how disease could pass directly from person to person, usually. Or maybe they would figure out that hey, wait a minute, it's the water that's causing this particular disease, but they still didn't know why. That's because the human eye can't see viruses or bacteria, aka 'germs.' They're too tiny.

"In 1674 a Dutchman named Anton van Leeuwenhoek designed and built his own microscope, a device capable of magnifying our vision of something by many, many times, and observed the first single-celled organisms in a drop of water from a pond. Over the next couple of centuries, scientists learned more and more about microbiology, and by the late eighteen hundreds what they had learned solidified into germ theory: transmissible diseases are caused by 'germs,' these microscopic organisms that invade the human body and have to be fought off by the immune system. Most germs are either bacteria or viruses, and for practical purposes what you need to know is that you can fight a bacterial infection with antibiotics, but not a viral one.

"This week we have a microscope with a slide featuring a droplet of pond water, just like the one Anton van Leeuwenhoek would have observed back in the day." Although this one was from Fandom's pond, so Don had taken a quick peek through the viewfinder before class to make sure there wasn't anything really weird in there. "I'd like everyone to come up and take a look, and see just how much is going on under the surface."

ifwebeworthy

"All right," Don, who seemed considerably perkier and wasn't holding a travel mug like it was his only hope of salvation this week, said at the beginning of class. "Take two. I hope everybody is who they're supposed to be this week, and has their usual complement of thumbs, whatever that may be. I remain Dr. Donald Blake, and this is still Health Education. Spoiler alert: the humors have gone out of fashion.

"So, I want to talk about relative knowledge. Where I come from, some people come from space. Some people are gods. Some people are from different time periods or dimensions. Sound familiar, right? This means that's what's basic knowledge to one person may be brand new information to the person standing next to them, or one way of explaining something may not work for everyone, and that's okay. So if I start talking about, say, vaccines, and you're thinking, 'Pffft, everyone knows this,' please remember that maybe the person sitting next to you doesn't. Maybe they use magic where they're from, or vaccination hasn't been invented in its modern form yet. And if the explanation I use for something doesn't work for you, please don't be afraid to say so and ask for more information. Okay? Okay. Now let's talk about vaccines, because they're important.

( Medical talk under here! )

ifwebeworthy

Don understood why he hadn't been impacted by the island's latest round of weirdness: he had never been a teenager in the first place. It would have been interesting to see what teenaged him would have been like, but, well. Apparently he was immune.

What he didn't understand was why Thor was affected despite not technically existing at present. It was a serious problem, considering that as a teenager, Thor had been a lot more hotheaded than he was as an adult, and he had absolutely no context for why he was trapped in the void, his only lifeline a mental connection to a total stranger. Naturally, he had concluded that Don was an evil sorcerer who had somehow captured him, and he wasn't happy about it. Don had been enduring threats to his person, both from Thor himself and 'when my father finds you,' all morning, and while Thor would have been more use against the snow monsters than Don was personally, he still wasn't about to do that. He had a class to teach, after all.

He took a fortifying sip of his very large coffee (which was secretly just straight cold brew concentrate today, because he deserved it) before addressing his class. "Good morning. I'm Dr. Donald Blake."

You are a foul sorcerer and I demand that you release me--

Don tuned him back out and continued, "And this is Health Education." If he sounded completely exhausted that was because he was. He'd spent fourteen hours in surgery yesterday and then been woken up early by Thor, who was going to owe him severely once he remembered himself. "I had a speech prepared about how I understand that introductions are gonna be of limited utility, because it's impossible for you to guide me toward what you need to learn, because you don't know what you don't know. But I don't remember it now, so let's just go with that. You don't know what you don't know, and that's okay. Some of you may not even know why you're in this class, and to that I say...don't worry about it. All will become clear in a few days to a week at most. Probably." Another sip of his coffee as Thor switched to trying to curse him out, followed by accusing him of hexing his speech as well as imprisoning him in the void. Maybe he'd just let him out after this. The void would be less stress.

"So. Introductions. I'd like to know who you are," even if some of you might be different next week. "Name, where and when you're from, and something about healthcare in your world of origin. We'll start with you," he said, gesturing with his travel mug toward a student at random.

ifwebeworthy

"Well, this is our final class together," Don said, "so I've prepared a ~~handwavey~~ exam for you." They could all read, right? He was pretty sure they could all read. "I want to say that you've been a lovely group, and I hope you have learned something and gotten some vaccines during our time together. You can turn over the papers on your desk and start your tests now."

ifwebeworthy

"I thought it would be a good idea to recap our safe sex lesson, especially since the week I gave it we were maybe a little...distracted." He didn't even know about the weird consequences of dances here yet. He just thought it was a good idea. "So. Please turn your attention to this horrifying ~~handwavey~~ slideshow about STIs, and then we'll discuss what you can do to prevent them and also pregnancy..."

After thoroughly traumatizing and educating his students, Don wrapped the class up with, "And remember: if he says the condom won't fit, he's lying. They stretch. Have a nice day."

ifwebeworthy

"A surprisingly important component of our health is our social health, our relationships with others," Don told his students this week. "Humans are social animals. It's important to get out and make friends and form connections. Lonely people have worse long-term health outcomes; there are all sorts of studies on it. So you could join a club, or go to a bar--although remember what I've said about alcohol overconsumption--or...what? Let's brainstorm today about ways to make friends and form connections with our community."

ifwebeworthy

"Let's talk about....sleep," Don decided. "Sleep is so important to your overall health, as is getting good sleep. Most people need about eight hours a night, and it's important to have a consistent sleep schedule, with a regular bedtime and wake up time." Don was two people. Don had spent ten years in the void. Don did not have anything like a consistent sleep schedule. But hey, do as I say, not as I do, right? "If you're drinking too much caffeine, it can impact your sleep schedule. If you're having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, you can try things to improve your environment, like making it darker or eliminating artificial light sources before bed. That means no scrolling on Vine or whatever it is you kids use these days," he joked. "If you don't get enough sleep, it can really impact your overall mental and physical health. And now, for the rest of this class, we're going to take naps." Because your teacher didn't get enough sleep last night.

ifwebeworthy

"Today we're gonna talk about a very serious topic, and one which may cause emotional reactions," Don warned his students. "But it's important to discuss, and remember, if you need to leave the class at any time you may do so. Today we're going to talk about addiction, and substance abuse."

( Discussion of those things under the cut )

ifwebeworthy

Should this topic have come sooner? Maybe, but they were all important topics if you asked Don, and some of his students, all things considered, had distractingly good teeth (here's looking at you, Flint), so it had slipped down the list somewhat.

"Let's talk about oral health," Don said. "I know, not the most exciting topic, and flossing is a pain, but it's important. If you take good care of your teeth, you're less likely to have problems with them like cavities or them rotting straight out of your skull." For example. "Now, the dentists won't like that I'm out here talking about our luxury mouth bones without their permission, but," he dropped his voice to a stage whisper, "We just won't tell them, all right?" Don had procured a model mouth from somewhere (no one tell the dentists), and he used it to demonstrate how to properly brush and floss your teeth as he talked about the importance of doing so twice a day, avoiding a ton of sugar, and so on.

When he was finished he asked, "Does anyone have any questions?" If he looked around like he was expecting a dentist to leap out and hit him with a cease and desist letter, well, that was just the surgeon in him.

ifwebeworthy

"Today we're going to talk about stress," Don told the class as he passed out handouts on the topic. "Now, stress is a normal part of life, caused by changes or challenges we experience, but sometimes you can experience too much of it, and your body can't handle that very well. It's bad for it. Especially when it's over a long period of time. There are physical symptoms of stress, such as high blood pressure, chest pains, headaches, digestive issues, and mental symptoms, such as anxiety or depression. Over the long term, stress can damage your body and your mind, and it can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as drinking too much, so it's important to manage stress in a healthy way."

Retreating into the void sort of counted as meditation, right? Don wasn't being a hypocrite here? That was what he was telling himself, though.

"Now, what can we do to manage stress? First, while it's impossible to avoid stress completely, it's important to be able to recognize when it is avoidable. Don't invite unnecessary trouble, right? Learning when you need to say 'no' is an important step. Then, if you take care of your body and make sure to make time for things you enjoy and staying connected with others, that can help. And it's always important to know when to reach out and ask for help, whether that's from a friend or a medical professional. Humans are like anything else: if you stress them enough, they snap.

"And on that cheerful note, I'm at the end of our lecture for the day, so does anyone have any questions, or want to talk about any stresses in their lives?"

ifwebeworthy

"We're going on a trip soon," Don told his students, "so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to talk about some sun safety information." Especially since two of you were English and one of you was blond. "A sunburn isn't just a temporary painful inconvenience, although it's definitely also that. Over time, damage to your skin from the sun can lead to skin cancer. Wearing protective clothing, like long sleeves and a hat, is a good idea, and you should always wear sunscreen, which is usually found in a lotion form but can also be found in stick or spray format." Don showed them a bottle and explained that, "This number is the SPF, or sun protection factor, number. The higher it is, the more radiation from the sun the sunscreen will block from getting to your skin.

"I also want to talk about heat exhaustion and heat stroke," Don continued, and proceeded to handwavily discuss those topics, because his player has a splitting headache. When he was done he asked, "Are there any questions?"

ifwebeworthy

"Okay," Don said, looking only slightly jittery, because he could handle this. He was a professional. "I decided it would be best to rearrange the schedule and talk to you today about safe sex. For reasons." Pollen reasons. "I'm basically obligated to remind you the safest option is not having sex at all--zero chance of STDS--uh, I guess they're calling them STIs now? Sexually transmitted infections--or pregnancy that way. But, let's face it, no one's perfect and you're probably not monks." Or eunuchs. So let's talk about how to use various forms of protection."

Don got through the ~~handwavey~~ lecture and demo (with a banana, you pervs) on how to use things like condoms and dental dams with only minimal embarrassment, because he was, in fact, a professional, but if one looked closely the tips of his ears were rather red, and when he finished he stumbled over, "Does anyone--does anyone have any questions?" because he maybe dreaded a little what those questions might be.

ifwebeworthy

"Now that you've been introduced to germs, we're going to talk about what you can do to avoid them--besides vaccines, which hopefully you've already started your series on. Yes?" Don checked with his students.

Then he set a bar of soap down on the desk in front of him. "Behold: our best defense against infection. You see, in the nineteenth century, a Hungarian doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that women in the obstetrical clinic's midwives' ward died of horrible infections at a dramatically lower rate than women in the doctor's wards. So he started trying to figure out why this might be--especially since, if you asked a nineteenth century doctor, obviously doctors were the superior option, what with their formal education and being male and all--please note sarcasm--and he noticed that one major difference was that the midwives washed their hands between patients, while the doctors...uh, didn't do that." Eugh. "Of course, the medical establishment at the time was a bunch of men who thought they could do no wrong, so things did not go well for Semmelweis, but while his handwashing protocols were in place maternal mortality at the clinic dropped from almost 20% to 2%, and after his death other scientists such as Louis Pasteur figured out that hot damn, he was right all along, which is why I wash my hands for about five minutes and then put sterile gloves on them before performing surgery.

"You, of course, don't have to go quite that hardcore, but handwashing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of germs. Think about all the stuff you touch with your hands, and all the people who touched it before you. It's especially important to wash your hands after, say, handling raw meat, using the bathroom, or sneezing on them. There is a correct way to wash your hands, and today we're going to watch an instructional video." At the end of said video, Don asked his students, "Are there any questions?"

ifwebeworthy

"I thought it might be a good idea to tell you guys a little bit more about germs this week," Don told his students, and did not mention he thought that because some of them predated germ theory. "For centuries, the prevailing theory, in the West, at least, was that miasma, or something bad in the air, caused disease, although in different times and places you saw people starting to see the holes in that theory via observation and logic--noticing how disease could pass directly from person to person, usually.

"In 1674 a Dutchman named Anton van Leeuwenhoek designed and built his own microscope, a device capable of magnifying our vision of something by many, many times, and observed the first single-celled organisms in a drop of water from a pond. Over the next couple of centuries, scientists learned more and more about microbiology, and by the late eighteen hundreds what they had learned solidified into germ theory: transmissible diseases are caused by 'germs,' these microscopic organisms that invade the human body and have to be fought off by the immune system. Most germs are either bacteria or viruses, and for our purposes what you need to know is that you can fight a bacterial infection with antibiotics, but not a viral one.

"This week we have a microscope with a slide featuring a droplet of pond water, just like the one Anton van Leeuwenhoek would have observed back in the day." Although this one was from Fandom's pond, so Don had taken a quick peek through the viewfinder before class to make sure there wasn't anything really weird in there. "I'd like everyone to come up and take a look, and see just how much is going on under the surface."

ifwebeworthy

"As I believe I mentioned last week, this week we're going to talk about vaccines," Don told his students. "You may already be familiar with the basic concept behind them, which is immunity. That is, if someone has, say, chicken pox once, they're immune and can't catch it again. That's because the cells in the human immune system--wait, okay.

( Medical talk under here! )

ifwebeworthy

Although Thursday was, of course, Thor's day, they were neither of them so rigid or so attached to a bit of wordplay that Don couldn't put in an appearance on that day, especially when scheduling so decreed. So here was Don at the front of the classroom, greeting his students with a, "Good morning! This is Health Education, and I am Dr. Donald Blake, although I am currently not licensed to practice in the state of Maryland. New York, yes. It's a...paperwork thing." It was fine. "While I don't recommend dying in the first place, if you can avoid coming back from the dead you should do that. Huge headache. Anyway. I can still teach.

"Since this is the first week of class, we are going to do, yes, introductions. This helps me know what you might already know about the subject, and also what you might have really, really wrong. I was dead for about ten years and I feel like I missed a ton," maybe because in real time he'd skipped closer to forty, but, y'know, details, "and I have friends back home who are from other dimensions and whatnot, so I know how confusing this can all be. So. Name, where and when you're from, and anything else you think I should know, like why you took this class. Also, if you've already had any vaccinations, because that's gonna be the first order of business next week. Go," he said, pointing at a student at random.

deaddadsclub

"Childbirth," Cristina said. "The miracle of life. The most wonderful time yadda yadda whatever. Personally, I don't see the attraction when it comes to tiny humans, but to each their own. Anyway, in the US we tend to encourage people to do this in a hospital, because things can go super wrong. Also the mother will poop on the table, so she might as well be somewhere where there are interns to make clean that up.

"So. You're hanging out with your very pregnant friend, coworker, or random stranger, and they go into labor. Odds are they've already got a very detailed plan for how they want this to happen, in which case, just let them take the lead. Offer to call someone for them or drive them to the hospital maybe, but otherwise? Butt out.

"On TV and in movies women will always just, like, suddenly say 'my water broke' and that's the first signal that childbirth is iminent. This is probably not going to happen in real life, but if it does, that's when it's time to bust out the supplies. Boiling water is not one of them. You'll want something to put under the laboring person for the, you know, body fluids, and somewhere comfortable for them to lie down. Wash your hands, put on surgical gloves if you've got one, and otherwise just be nice to them and tell them how great they're doing. 90% of the time the rest will take care of itself." Cristina sighed. "Which is really boring, so let's take a look at the other 10%."

"Causes of death related to childbirth include: postpartum bleeding, preeclampsia or other hypertensive disorders in the mother, postpartum infections, and obstructed labor. Pretty much all of which can be best diagnosed and treated by professionals, but this class is all about how to deal with stuff when professionals aren't around. So there's your final. Pick one or more of those conditions, and brainstorm ways you would diagnose and treat them in an emergency situation."

deaddadsclub

"Alright, pop quiz," Cristina said at the top of class. She was in a weirdly good mood, today. That couldn't bode well. "Giant sinkhole opens up in the middle of town, swallowing people and cars and maybe part of a building." She frowned, sighed, and shook her head. "No cars here, so let's say in Baltimore. You're on the scene, because the universe hates you, but you're lucky enough not to get caught in the immediate collapse. There's a woman trapped at the bottom under her own car, pinned by the leg. She needs immediate medical attention, but the ground's too unstable to risk moving the car to get her out. What do you do?"

She looked around at the students. "If your answer is 'cut off her leg', congratulations! That is exactly what Drs. Owen Hunt and Calliope Torres, two of the finest surgeons on the planet, decided to do when this exact thing happened in Seattle a couple — six? Seven — years ago. The extra fun part is that the sinkhole was actually too unstable to send either of them down there, so they had to walk the woman's husband through the process instead."

Yes. That totally counted as 'extra fun'.

"Now, you're probably thinking that the odds of you being faced with having to do a field amputation as a lay person are really slim, but this kind of thing happens way more often than you'd think." At least it did in her universe. "Any of you hear of the man who got his arm caught between boulders while on a remote hike, who cut his own arm off with a swiss army knife? Now that's what I call balls." She should maybe be less openly into a guy cutting off his own arm. But she was fourteen weeks into this class now and she hadn't even cared how she came off as a teacher when she'd started, so. "Anyway. Lucky you, you all get to learn how to properly amputate someone's limb today."

She then launched into a ~~handwaved~~ detailed explanation of how to perform a prehospital amputation, demonstrating on a simulated patient at the front of the classroom, and explaining things like how to work around the lack of cauteries or suction or replacement blood, and how much force you need if you're stuck using an actual swiss army knife to do it. When she was finished, she held up the successfully severed simulated hand and admired it with a smile. "There. See? Totally easy."

She hit a button, and simulated victims appeared around the room, trapped in a variety of places. "Your turn. First one to get your patient free and ready for an ambulance wins . . . something." She pulled out her wallet and flipped through it, then held up a five dollar bill. "Enough cash to buy yourself a cookie. Now: go!"

deaddadsclub

"Oh look," Cristina said as the students gathered for class. "You all survived the holiday."

If she sounded disappointed, then surely that was in jest. Surely.

"Turns out Thanksgiving around here is just as boring as every other day on this island. How have none of you even managed to blow off a finger playing with fireworks or something? Come on. You're juveniles. Do something delinquenty!" She looked from student to student, then let out a sigh. None of these were the delinquent type. Well, maybe Hipster Spice. She was a weird one.

"Right, anyway. I guess we should cover another first aid topic. Have we done the ( Heimlich yet? )

deaddadsclub

There was a sign on the Danger Shop door when the students arrived.

It's the day before a major American holiday. Go home and imagine all the horrible, amazing injuries are going to flood ERs tomorrow.

Happy day off, everyone.

deaddadsclub

"Eyeballs," Cristina said. Segues were for losers. "They're fragile balls of goo, but having functioning ones is kind of a big deal in modern society. So what do you do if something happens to your friend's eye?" She held up a stack of handouts and waved to Paris. What? It'd worked last week. "Look these over, and then I'll shock you with some gruesome hologram to patch up."

Awww. The joy of the Danger Shop was fading. Poor Cristina.

"Oh, and it doesn't cover it in there, but I'm not going to assume more than, say, half of you are smart enough to figure it out without saying: if someone's eyeball is falling out, then you also want to call 911 and get them to a real life doctor. And not, like, touch it and try to put it back in yourself. Fragile balls of goo, people!"

She clicked a button with a wave of her hand, and three injured simulations appeared. "You know the drill by now. Go forth and first aid, or whatever. Try not to blind anyone for life."

deaddadsclub

Cristina looked exhausted, and probably hung over.

She was reasonably certain no one was going to blame her today.

"So fractures." She nudged a stack of handouts with her foot, hoping one of the students — Nerdy Spice, maybe — would take initiative and pass them out for her. "Orthopedics. Not really my thing. It's more . . . carpentry than anything else. Still, people end up with broken bones, so you're going to want to know how to keep 'em from bleeding out or dying of shock while you get them to the hospital." She nudged the stack with her foot again. "So yeah. Read these, study up or whatever, and learn something." She leaned back in her chair, draping her arm over her eyes, then looked up at the students again. "Right, and, uh." She sat up enough to hit a couple buttons on the Danger Shop's controls. A young woman fell from the ceiling, screaming about trees, and landed poorly on the floor in the middle of the simulated classroom.

"She just fell out of a sequoia being bulldozed by Big Lumber, and broke all her limbs. That should be plenty broken bones to go around."

deaddadsclub

The students didn't find a classroom when they came into the Danger Shop today. Instead, they stepped right into a busy hospital emergency room. Cristina was there to greet them, wearing scrubs and a yellow trauma gown. She handed each student their own gown as they came in, along with a pair of gloves, and when everyone seemed to have arrived, she started class.

"Welcome to the Emergency Room," she said. "On Halloween." She looked over the chaos of doctors, nurses, and patients all rushing back and forth behind her and gave a little happy sigh. "There are certain times of year when being a surgeon gets extra exciting. Thanksgiving, Christmas — pretty much any major holiday. But on Halloween . . . that's when people get creative. Your job today is to triage, and if necessary, treat some patients. If you're not familiar with the term, 'triage' means to assess the condition of a patient and decide how urgently they need to be treated. It's one of the most important things an emergency responder does in a mass casualty situation, and it's what keeps an ER running smoothly." She turned back to the students. "Basically, if you're in the ER and no one's paying attention to you? That probably means you're going to be okay." She sighed and shrugged. "Or the staff at that ER is doing a really terrible job, but if you want to be optimistic, it means you're going to be okay.

"There are three things that are primarily used to assess a patient's condition for triage. They're known as the ABCs." Cristina grabbed a passing nurse, and made them hold still while she demonstrated how to perform a basic triage check-in. "Airway: make sure that the patient's mouth, nose, and throat are unobstructed. Breathing: check to make sure your patient can inhale and exhale without trouble. That includes checking to see that both their lungs are inflating properly. And finally, circulation: you want to make sure that any bleeding has been attended to, but also that there's nothing stopping bloodflow to any part of the patient's body." She waved the nurse off again. "Oh, and you should, you know, talk to the patient, if they're conscious. Ask what happened, what hurts, all that. But you definitely want the three Cs. We had a resident get fired once for getting distracted and forgetting to check a patient's airway properly. The patient went from conscious and not seeming in distress to dead due to carbon monoxide poisoning in, like, minutes. Do not skimp on your triage."

She led the students to a (slightly) quieter section of the ER. "Here are your patients. Each of you is going talk to and assess each patient, then tell me what order you think they should be seen to. And don't forget your bedside manner. That gets graded, too." She paused, looked at the students, then waved them towards the patients. "Get going! It's Halloween, there's no telling what's going to happen in here!"

[content note!: body dysmorphia and (somewhat cartoonish) self-harm in comments. Apologies for not putting the note up last night!]

deaddadsclub

The classroom today had been rearranged, the desks all removed and replaced with four large, suspciously draped tables. Cristina stood at the one in front, wearing her old scrubs, a face mask pulled down around her neck.

"I got bored," she said. "So we're doing an anatomy lesson."

Hurray?

"The single most important thing in all of modern medicine is being able to practice on actual tissue. You can put bandaids on people all day, but you won't truly appreciate the complex majesty of the human body until you've actually gotten to see all its parts up close and personal. Unfortunately, the school board nixed my idea of sourcing actual cadavers for high school students to work on, but hey. This place is basically the next best thing, right?" She looked much too pleased by this whole scenario. "So today you're going to pair off and do some dissection. We don't have anywhere near enough time to cover the whole human body properly — that takes years, not hours — so each pair is going to get one organ from the thoracic cavity to locate and identify by the end of class. So, uhhhh. You and you get corpse number one, you two are on corpse number two, and you two get corpse number three. There are spare scrubs, gowns, gloves and face masks at each table. Not that you can catch or spread anything from holograms, but you can all play dress up and at least feel like real doctors while you're at it. I'll walk you through cracking the chest, and then you all can go nuts." She pulled her face mask up and held a scalpel in her gloved hand. "Now, gown-up and let's have some fun, shall we?"

deaddadsclub

The Danger Shop was set up like a computer lab today, the old school kind with the giant monitors. Basically it looked just like the computer labs she'd had in her high school -- only with faster internet access.

"Midterm day," Cristina said. "You're doing research projects. You're going to research a medical condition and present it to the class." She smirked. "Bonus points for the person who can find the weirdest, grossest one!"

deaddadsclub

Cristina was leaning back in the teacher's chair at the front of the classroom program in the Danger Shop, today, spinning slowly left and right, her hands propped behind her head as she looked up at the ceiling.

She hadn't slept well. Kept dreaming about people from Seattle. And, like, giant vehicles.

Look, you have a friend literally get hit by a bus and you started to worry about things like giant vehicles, okay?

( Ya burnt! )

The lights came back up, and instead of a few victims appearing for treatment, this time a fire alarm went off. Lights flashed in time to the blaring alarm, the sprinkler system went off, and the sound of running feet could be heard in the hallway — the holographic hallway, opposite the real door the students had come in through.

"And looks like we've got ourselves a fire!" Cristina sounded far too cheerful about that. "First aid kits are on the desk. Grab one, and go see if anyone got burned."

deaddadsclub

"Poisons," Cristina said at the top of class. "They're literally everywhere. There's even a store on this island named for them, so if you all don't already know at least some of what I'm about to teach you already, you're stupider than I thought." Didn't you guys miss her last week? "But reviewing the basics never hurts, so let's get this show on the road, shall we?"

The Danger Shop was once again programmed to resemble a classroom, and the lighting dimmed obligingly as Cristina projected a website onto the whiteboard. "This is the website for National Capital Poison Control, the DC area nonprofit poison control center. You can find a lot of how-to guides for accidental poisonings on here, and you can also find contact information for someone to walk you through how to handle an accidental poisoning. There are literally dozens of other websites and associations like this one all over the world, because people are stupid and children specifically are even stupider. If, for instance, you or any of your friends decide that it'd be really awesome to do the Tide Pod Challenge for real, this site is going to be your friend.

( Poooooooooooooisoooooooooooon )

Cristina clapped her hands and looked over the class. "Now that that's all covered, let's see how you all do actually putting these techniques into action." Three holographic victims appeared, all in various states of poisoned distress. "Pair up and pick a victim. Use the poison control's substance guide to help you figure out the best treatment, and use the phone on the wall up here if you decide to call for professional medical care, so you don't end up bothering actual 911 or poison control operators with a fake emergency. And have fun! You're saving imaginary lives here, people!"

deaddadsclub

The students would find a sign on the door when they came to class today.

Class is cancelled. Go call a loved one or something.
G'mar Tov.

Look, Cristina wasn't religious at all, but despite the fact that she wouldn't have gone even if she could, she wasn't handling not even having the option of going home for Yom Kippur at all well. And drinking and teaching high school students didn't seem like the sorts of things one should mix.

[yeah, I spaced last night. At least I have a character driven IC excuse?]

deaddadsclub

The students would arrive for class today to find their teacher bent over a tablet in an actual simulation (of a classroom, look, there was still a learning curve here), tapping at various things and chuckling ominously to herself. Someone — probably a squirrel — had finally clued Cristina in on what the Danger Shop was for.

"Oh man. Chief Webber would love this."

She looked up once they'd gathered, then tapped a few last buttons on the tablet and set it aside. "So the squirrels haven't reported on any suspicious deaths around town, so I'm going to assume none of you had to use what we learned last week yet. Lucky you. Today you're going to learn something you're way more likely to actually use in your day to day lives: how to treat a ( hemorrhage )

She turned back to the class, who had hopefully been madly jotting all of that down. "So rather than practice on more dummies today — or try stitching up some bananas, even though that is a tried and true method of learning to suture — we're going to actually use this room to its full, high tech potential. Students, meet your patients." She pressed a series of buttons, and six new people appeared in the room. They just a handful of random preprogrammed characters she'd pulled up from the menu, and included a punk rocker, a ten year old, a police officer, a sexy zombie nurse, a pirate, and a rodeo clown. All of whom promptly started bleeding from various wounds. "Now keep them alive."

deaddadsclub

The Danger Shop was still unprogrammed when the students arrived for class this morning. Their teacher was actually here at least, this time, as were several CPR dummies of various sizes (infant to adult) and levels of realism (plastic-sack-with-a-face to might-develop-sentience-if-we're-not-careful), which she'd found in a back closet at the clinic. She also had a full stock of training masks and valves — god only knew where these kids had been, after all — and an AED, which was going to stay up by her until it was time to demonstrate, thank you very much. God only knew if any of these kids were smart enough not to electrocute each other with them.

( CPR! )

deaddadsclub

The students gathering in the Danger Shop for their first Health and First Aid class would find the space empty, just a large room with undecorated, metal walls. Only a piece of white printer paper with "Humanoid Health and First Aid" written on it in sharpie let them know they were in the right place. There was nary a teacher in sight for several long minutes.

Anyone who subscribed to the theory of "if the teacher's fifteen minutes late you're allowed to go home" would be quite disappointed when, at minute 14, Cristina stumbled through the door, looking harried and extremely put out.

"I keep telling you, I didn't sign up to teach any high school class! I barely put up with teaching residents, and they at least went to medical school!"

The sound of chittering echoed away down the hall. Cristina threw her hands in the air.

"See if I give any of you IV fluids the next time you come into the clinic with a hangover!"

The door to the Danger Shop slid shut with a whirr and a disconcertingly final *click*. Cristina let out a long suffering sigh and turned to face the class.

"Okay, the fact that any of you are even still here after your teacher had to get herded in by squirrels is just, like, clear proof that you're all idiots. But apparently if I don't want to be bombarded by acorns and bad mouthed on the radio, I've got to teach you idiots how handle traumas, so . . . congratulations on your ridiculously overqualified teacher."

Yup, this class was going to be awesome.

"Right, so." She looked around the room, frowning. What the hell was she even supposed to use in here? "I'm Dr. Cristina Yang. I'm a board certified cardiothoracic surgeon, which means that I repair hearts and lungs. Or I would, anyway, except I'm stuck in magical exile on an island that likes to kidnap and traumatize people." She heaved a sigh. "Which, alright, fine, is a good reason for you all to know some basic techniques. I'm not a trauma surgeon by trade, but I was married to one for a long time, and I have a fair amount of experience with field work, so they could have made a worse choice for teaching this class, at least."

Someone very short pounded on the door. It opened just a crack, and a piece of paper slid in. Cristina picked it up.

"This says that the first week is supposed to involve introductions." She looked back up at the students. "You're welcome to try, but I am not going to bother learning your names unless you prove it's worth knowing. Probably not by wowing me with your knowledge, since you're high schoolers, but, I dunno, by kissing up and bringing me coffee each week or something. For today I think I'll quiz you on some basic health questions and call you by . . . I'm going to go with Spice Girl names. Because that will entertain me." She pointed to one of the students. "We'll start with you."

askhimyourself.livejournal.com

"This is going to be our last class," Claire greeted everyone when they got to the classroom. "You've all been great, and hopefully you learned a thing or two, even if I hope you don't need to use it unless you work as a medical professional. For your final, you have to answer a few questions on what you've studied over this semester. Once you get that done, you're free to go."

askhimyourself.livejournal.com

"Morning, guys," Claire greeted them when they got to the classroom. "We have a final coming up and it sounds like you guys had a messed up weekend, so we're going to take things slow today. You're going to have a written exam on the things we've covered in class, so what do you think you still need to learn more on? Is there anything you're unclear on, or want to practice again? Now's the time."

askhimyourself.livejournal.com

Welcome back, class! Your good friend Mr. TV was out in front of the classroom today!

"I spent the holiday working a few double shifts and didn't have a lot of time for class planning," Claire said, shrugging. "Things happen. So you're getting a movie, which I'm going to say is marginally related to health because they play baseball, which is exercise, so there you go. Enjoy."

askhimyourself.livejournal.com

Class was back in the actual classroom today. One more thing that was back to normal!

"Thank god you're all the right ages, or today would have been a really weird class," Claire greeted everybody. "And hopefully you didn't leave all your work to do this last weekend, because you're still going to have to do your drug presentations from last week. So who wants to start?"

askhimyourself.livejournal.com

And this week, class was meeting in the computer lab. Claire still preferred the real thing over Danger Shopped anything.

"This week we were going to be talking about drug use," Claire greeted the class. Good morning! "I had all these ideas on how to do it, how to talk to teenagers about it, and realized that you guys getting lectured by a nurse about how these things are bad and you shouldn't do them was probably not too effective. So I'm going to make you learn about it. You're going to pick from a list of recreational drugs and do a research project on them. I want you to find out where they come from, what their purpose is, and what their downsides and side effects are, and next week you're going to present a report in front of the class. So, pick your thing and get to it."

askhimyourself.livejournal.com

There had been emails sent out telling the students to meet in the dorm gym today and wear clothes they could work out in, so hey, at least you knew what you were getting into!

"One of the major things about health that people try to avoid is exercise," Claire told them. "Again, it's not just about losing weight, it's about keeping yourself healthy. Making sure your heart works. Avoiding heavy breathing on long walks when your friends are way ahead of you. The goal is to exercise three to five times a week, for at least twenty minutes. Since you barely have classes to actually go to, you can do that. So what I want you to do is try it for a week. Keep a log of what you did and for how long on what days, and hand it in for class next week. And to get you started, here's the gym. Pick something you want to do and get some exercise in."

askhimyourself.livejournal.com

There was a TV out in front of the classroom today, but Claire started right off with, "Yeah, we're going to be having a movie day today, but don't think you're getting off too easy there. We're talking about mental health, and to be totally honest, I'm not an expert there. I work in an ER, where most of my work there is calling someone if someone seems depressed or incapacitated. But it's definitely something we need to cover, so.

"Sometimes brains don't work the way they should. Some people are depressed, some anxious, some borderline, some schizophrenic, some are a combination of a few things. There's a really broad spectrum of mental health disorders that someone can have, which is why I'm not comfortable getting too in depth on this subject," Claire admitted. "Here's the important stuff to know: having a mental illness doesn't mean there's something wrong with you, or that you're crazy. It's like having a bum leg or a heart condition. It's something you have to deal with, and just because you can't see the problem doesn't mean it's not there. And if you feel that you might need some kind of help, it's best not to self-diagnose. There's no shame in asking for help from a professional who can figure out what's going on and help. I'm also going to pass out a handout that'll include websites and phone numbers for help lines and stuff, so it's a good reference to keep around if you or anyone you know might need it.

"And with that, we're going to watch a movie that takes place back in the 60's, which didn't handle this sort of stuff so well," Claire said. "Remember this is for entertainment purposes only, and don't let it scare you out of anything on the sheet I'm giving you."

askhimyourself.livejournal.com

Today Claire had actually braved the Danger Shop. She still thought it was weird, but she really could make the setting more appropriate there than in a classroom. So the students had gotten emails to meet her there for class, and to wear comfortable clothes. When they walked into what looked like a yoga studio, they might know why.

"We're going to be talking a little about stress and mental health this week and next," she told them. "First up: stress. You're teenagers, you've definitely had your share of it. It can be stress about your relationships, or school, or your future, pretty much anything. Not to mention here you deal with crazy sh- stuff happening all the time. Which isn't to say that stress can't be a good. If you have a job with a deadline or that really challenges you, and you enjoy it, that can be a good thing. You can have a family and be stressed out, but find it really fulfilling. But with any kind of stress, you need to find ways to manage it, or it could lead to serious health problems, both physically and mentally. And while a lot of people have a problem and turn to drugs or alcohol or avoidance, that's not going to help. It might for a little while, but it doesn't make anything go away, and might even make the problem worse.

"So, if you're getting stressed out, take time for yourself. Head for a spa day, go work out, hang out with friends, whatever you need to do," Claire continued. "Making things like eating right and being active a regular part of your life helps with long-term self-care. If you have someone you can talk to about your problems, use them. If you don't, that's what therapists are for.

"We'll talk more about all of this next week, but for today, we're going to do something positive," she said, stepping back to let a~~n NPC~~ yoga instructor come to the front of the class. "I don't know how to teach yoga. Luckily this school's weird program thing means I don't need to. Grab a mat, and we'll get started."

Fandom High RPG

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