Sherlock is flush with cash - John is a doctor - and I am clueless

[impulsereader]

He never claims to be skint..."Told Mike this morning I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for."

All the dialogue about money is either from John - or Sherlock feeding John's assumption of lack of such.

Hence - my belief that Sherlock is flush with cash gains canon ground.

In a practical sense, what is John’s skill set as a doctor? At the surgery he writes scripts and performs some triage in deciding if someone should be sent to hospital, but he’s over qualified for this. He doctored soldiers who were wounded by bullets and bombs rather than strep throat. So what sorts of injuries do we think John could successfully treat on his own, given the proper supplies?

As an example sort of a scenario – someone is stabbed in the torso. In my head, John binds the wound and then we go off to hospital because the victim needs additional scans and care. But if someone is stabbed relatively superficially in the leg, and once the wound is bound he can walk just fine, indicating no muscle damage – in my head perhaps John could stich this wound on his own if he’s not worried about internal bleeding and such. Would he set a broken bone? Probably not without an x-ray unless it was a real emergency situation, I would imagine.

Sorry, just trying to set my doctor so he shows off best in the available light...without being a show off...

Comments

[221b-hound.livejournal.com]

I've assumed that although John might have some skills in general practice (depending on his internship) his main skillset would be in trauma injuries. If he was in the field I guess that would mean basic triage and stabilising serious injuries until the patient can be sent to surgery. Assuming he actually worked, MASH-style, in front-line surgery, he'd have been there stitching up the poor bastards as well.

I don't really know how medics are deployed in the field though.

I sometimes wonder how well he does as a GP. I have a friend who is a GP, and he's pointed out before that in some ways it's a bit more challenging that being a specialist, because your knowledge has to be broad rather than deep. There's so much more to know about *everything*, from nutritional advice to identifying possible diseases from a wide range of often not-very-specific symptoms.

Anyway, I think your summary seems right. And although his hand tremor disappears while under stress, I imagine it's why he's no longer a surgeon. Convincing the medical board that your intermittent tremor is going to disappear while you stitch people up in an emergency ward is going to be very difficult if it shows up at other times when you're *not* under stress.

I think in a pinch, as long as he had supplies of some kind, he could perform emergency surgery. I think in the absence of that kind of situation, he's still an experienced and uber competent field surgeon, prepping folks and keeping them alive until they can be taken to a hospital for full and correct diagnosis and treatment.

This might actually involve some quite complex emergency treatment to keep people from bleeding out or just to keep them breathing until help arrives. Since he's not in a full war zone any more, maybe trying to triage a dozen or more patients, he could probably spend a lot longer trying to save someone who, in a battle situation, he might have to abandon in favour of someone with a better chance of survival.

Stitching up an uncomplicated wound would be part of that, as well as aftercare of the wound.

Have I been babbling? Possibly. If you have specific questions, I could ask my Dr friend when he returns from his holiday, if you like.