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Being both a nerd and someone that thinks that studying shouldn't have to suck, I was trying to come up with a good way to turn studying into a game. Here's a few initial thoughts-
The game takes place shortly after some sort of catastrophe in which the players are all physicians, and your supplies have become limited to whatever you can dig up. Supplies are represented by cards, which can be anything from specific antibiotics to testing kits or whatever, divided into several piles that differ based upon the theme (trauma, infections, etc- different games will use different decks to minimize useless supplies or untreatable patients)- antimicrobials, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and medical supplies. Patients come in different types- Trauma , Infection, Unknown, etc. Patients are represented by cards that show their complaint and history. If you are confident you can treat them, you discard the appropriate equipment to do so. After you have provided treatment, flip the card over, and a description of what disease the patient had, as well as what treatment was required, and some high-yield USMLE facts about their condition, will be presented.
You can pass on treating a patient if you don't believe you have the supplies necessary, which will give other players a chance to try and treat them. Alternatively, each card has a list of diagnostic tests that can be discarded that will allow you to flip their card over and see their diagnosis. Once this is done, you may immediately discard the proper treatment cards to treat the patient if you have them; if not, the next player can treat them if they have the necessary cards. All supply cards are kept face-up. This allows you to see what your opponents have available, and lets you prioritize which patients you might want to treat or dismiss to either beat your opponents to treatment or to screw your opponents out of treating a patient by sending them away.
First person to treat X number of patients wins. Turn phases are draw (can hold ten cards total, may discard cards from your hand during the draw phase to pick up any mix of face-down new cards from the supply decks), See Patient (May draw a new patient- patients are left in the center of the table, with up to four total being present- if more than four are present, one may be sent away to see a new patient, hence your ability to screw your enemies by dismissing patients they could easily treat if their turn is coming up), Diagnose (if you choose to do so), and Treat Patient.
I figure that if it were properly balanced, and the decks were built around a general theme (such as infections), you could get a good enough mix of antibiotics and diagnostic tests to where you could have a fairly large patient deck without ending up stuck with a bunch of untreatable patients due to not having the right supplies.
In any case, I think I might get to designing some open-sourced rules and build a few printable decks in the future, because I think putting learning medicine into a competitive format with the right rules could potentially make learning bugs and drugs a lot more fun.
Ah well, for now, back to studying with lame-ass flash cards. Thoughts?
The game takes place shortly after some sort of catastrophe in which the players are all physicians, and your supplies have become limited to whatever you can dig up. Supplies are represented by cards, which can be anything from specific antibiotics to testing kits or whatever, divided into several piles that differ based upon the theme (trauma, infections, etc- different games will use different decks to minimize useless supplies or untreatable patients)- antimicrobials, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and medical supplies. Patients come in different types- Trauma , Infection, Unknown, etc. Patients are represented by cards that show their complaint and history. If you are confident you can treat them, you discard the appropriate equipment to do so. After you have provided treatment, flip the card over, and a description of what disease the patient had, as well as what treatment was required, and some high-yield USMLE facts about their condition, will be presented.
You can pass on treating a patient if you don't believe you have the supplies necessary, which will give other players a chance to try and treat them. Alternatively, each card has a list of diagnostic tests that can be discarded that will allow you to flip their card over and see their diagnosis. Once this is done, you may immediately discard the proper treatment cards to treat the patient if you have them; if not, the next player can treat them if they have the necessary cards. All supply cards are kept face-up. This allows you to see what your opponents have available, and lets you prioritize which patients you might want to treat or dismiss to either beat your opponents to treatment or to screw your opponents out of treating a patient by sending them away.
First person to treat X number of patients wins. Turn phases are draw (can hold ten cards total, may discard cards from your hand during the draw phase to pick up any mix of face-down new cards from the supply decks), See Patient (May draw a new patient- patients are left in the center of the table, with up to four total being present- if more than four are present, one may be sent away to see a new patient, hence your ability to screw your enemies by dismissing patients they could easily treat if their turn is coming up), Diagnose (if you choose to do so), and Treat Patient.
I figure that if it were properly balanced, and the decks were built around a general theme (such as infections), you could get a good enough mix of antibiotics and diagnostic tests to where you could have a fairly large patient deck without ending up stuck with a bunch of untreatable patients due to not having the right supplies.
In any case, I think I might get to designing some open-sourced rules and build a few printable decks in the future, because I think putting learning medicine into a competitive format with the right rules could potentially make learning bugs and drugs a lot more fun.
Ah well, for now, back to studying with lame-ass flash cards. Thoughts?
(assuming no cheat code is used btw)
