What do i use medicine for?

[NeverEvil]

Is it best to use medicine only on surgery/Infections or just on every scratch they get. because the modifier is the same so i dont know why some people use medicine on literally everything

[Cimm0]

I think it affects surgery results so if you're low on medicine but have healroot, it's better to save the medicine for emergencies (= surgery).

[Canute]

Medicin give you better treatment success or less chance to fail.
I suggest for the regular treatments use healroots, and when you install some bionics or other tougher operations use medicin.
And it depend on the skill of your doc.

At example, you Doc need a new lung/kidney but the next best just got a low skill, then use medicin/glitterworld med. for sure. :-)

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Is it best to use medicine only on surgery/Infections or just on every scratch they get. because the modifier is the same so i dont know why some people use medicine on literally everything

I use it for everything except:

-Bruises/cracks
-Non life threatening diseases (the long term diseases that go away after "x" number of treatments)
-*Very* minor cuts - something in the range of damage of like 39/40 where it will heal almost immediately.

I do this until I have a large surplus of herbal medicine, then set everyone for herbal medicine max treatment. At this time, if I still have regular medicine, I watch injuries and micro each pawn, treating only the more severe things with better medicine.

[NeverEvil]

Because i see quill18 (a youtuber) use medicine on every little scratch which doesn't change the success modifier by alot

[Spingitore]

What about infections?
I mean, is death rate dependent on medicine used during treatments or it is just purely random?

[carbon]

No Medicine - Very minor wounds, prisoners (not-for-recruit), standard care if you are about to run out of alternatives for emergencies.

Herbal Medicine - Early-/Mid-game standard wound/infection care, prisoners you plan to recruit

Medicine - Early-/Mid-game non-bionic operations or intensive care, Late-game bionic operations and standard care.

Glitterworld Medicine - Early-/Mid-game bionic operations (and non-bionic if high-value pawn is involved)

Assumes you're capable of getting herbal in the early game, that medicine production takes off in the late game and that late game surgeons have >100% surgery success chance.

[ArguedPiano]

I find Medicine in short supply and expensive to buy so I tend to conserve it as much as possible mainly to build hospital beds later on.

The only time I use it is:
1) For surgeries (any of them as a catastrophic fail could be fatal)
2) Serious diseases such as the plague.

And that's about it.

I have never had a pawn die from infection or a minor disease with consistent treatment using no medication. So to me there is no point in wasting precious Medicine UNLESS there is a real chance your pawn may die.

I do on the other hand grow heal root as soon as I can and use that beautiful stuff for everything under the moon!

[bclewis]

It sure would be nice if we could set a "medicine policy" (so we could set up automatic policies similar to what @Carbon is talking about), to avoid having to micromanage as much.  Mid-game I tend to restrict my colonists to "herbal medicine" only, and then micromanage individual colonists for surgeries and serious illnesses.