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

[quarryquest.livejournal.com]

As a First Aider at Work for many years, I am not a doctor, but I have triaged any injuries that needed deciding whether it was 'wait and see', 'make an appointment with your doctor', 'take them to casualty' or 'get an ambulance'.

The reason one goes to hospital rather than to a doctor these days is because they have more complex methods to test you /view inside you. They also have drugs, ways to monitor you, nursing care ... oh and ways to ressusitate you if it really is that bad.

Having had a 'walk-in centre' near me in a town in the middle of nowhere (long journey of 20 miles to big town and big hospital) so at one point nearly everything got taken there. Drs were treating stuff that nurses would treat and vice versa depending on how busy they were. I learnt a lot, and developed diagnostic skills so I could spot things (not limited to, but including) pneumonia, broken fingers and appendicitis!

I also had a friend who was a field Medic (but not a Dr) in the Falklands War in the 1980s and he was apparently trained to such a high standard that when he came out he could have been fast tracked to become a GP.

I would say that unless the person needed prescription drugs, blood, IV fluids or some sort of medical investigation, John could manage quite well on his own, thank you very much.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

This is the view I currently like the best. John's a smart guy, and along with the baseline skills he acquired in actual medical school, he saw a lot in Afghanistan and learned from it. Although, now that I type it, this is what makes him hard to write just as Sherlock being brilliant makes him hard to write - I'm neither as brilliant as Sherlock nor as trained and experienced as John. Sigh. Again reduced to slurring the difficult bits ala Lizzie Bennet.