Talk:Medical procedures

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference

This page was a long-requested one on the list of Memory Alpha's Requested Articles. Upon seeing the request, I thought for a long while on how it might be done, especially without creating redundancies among the already excellent articles listed under Medical Treatments and Medical Equipment. Basic differences between Treatment and Procedure should be defined here, as I see them. A "Treatment" may be considered a drug for an illness or condition, such as where Benjisidrine is used as a treatment for congestive heart failure prior to the procedure of open heart surgery, or where a Theragen derivitive is a treatment for interphase space madness. Many of these treatments are already well listed, whereas procedures have not been well described outside their episodes. A "Procedure" is a description of a medical or surgical procedure, such as the complete organ replacement of Worf's spinal cord in the TNG: Ethics, and should include descriptions of patient prep, drugs used (and in what order), the surgical procedure itself, and recovery methods (physical therapy, additional medications, etc). It may also include complications and side effects. I look forward to further discussion and refinement on the topic. --CMO 12:19, 7 Jun 2005 (EST)