This blog series transforms a series of medical specialties into different planets. This blog focuses on working as a dermatologist. Read on to find out more about Jupiderm!
Jupiderm: Basic Information
Did any crew members buy the recently-released video game “No Man’s Sky” (upon which the premise of these reports is -ahem – loosely based) – where you played an astronaut as he travelled across the universe in hopes of finding new life on bizarre, alien worlds? If you did, do you remember ever landing on a planet that looked interesting from afar, yet upon landing, you were greeted the helpful-yet-frustrating information that the planet was totally devoid of life.
Of course, that was a rhetoric question – if you ever played No Man’s Sky you will know that this happened many, MANY times (but don’t worry, the planet has plenty of pretty rocks to look at…). Anyway, as it turns out (after numerous studies on the topic), this is the exact same feeling experienced by many crew members when they arrive on the barren planet of Jupiderm.
Jupiderm: Environment
Like the visitors to Jupiderm, 99% of the planet’s surface is covered by one of two continents – the dry, red and itchy United States of Eczemarica, or the dry, red and itchy (but also sort of scaly) Psoriasicily. Both land masses are very similar, and are managed by the natives in almost identical ways (Moisturiser. Lots and lots of moisturiser.), so you can start to see the main issue for crew members that visit Jupiderm – not a great deal of variety of things to see or do.
Of course, that remaining 1% of the planet is host to a range of weird and wonderful habitats that can stimulate a great deal of intrigue, but for the amount of time that crew members will be on-planet (very short), opportunities to see these phenomena are hard to come by.
Jupiderm: Crew Member Survival
It can be frustrating for crew members required to spend time on Jupiderm, as you don’t feel that there is much learning to be gained from assessing visitors on the planet’s wards with the same two problems over and over. However, there are definite areas to explore that will make the time more beneficial and entertaining:
Clinics
Jupiderm has several clinic moons surrounding the basic ward environment, where many of the visitors with weird and wonderful issues are assessed and treated. Try to visit these moons a few times, and you should gain better insight into proper dermatological examination, and get to try out some procedures that you won’t find anywhere else in the healthcosmos (E.G. cryotherapy – basically you get to pretend you are Mr Freeze and fire a “cold-ray” – but not the Schwarzenegger movie version of the character, you understand – sadly, you aren’t allowed to only talk to patients in puns).
Surgery
Skin surgery is technically part of the nearby surgical starways (to be written up in a later report), but has close enough connections to Jupiderm that an initiative-taking crew member should have little difficulty making the quick inter-planetary hop across, granting the opportunity to see how some of the more dramatic skin problems are treated.
Jupiderm is probably the easiest planet to write off as a waste of space exploration, but there are ways to make time here worthwhile. Crew members just have to think a little outside the box.
Words and illustration: Eric Richardson
