Herbal Medicine vs Medicine for skilled doctors

[Forblaze]

I notice that my 15+ doctor does very well with herbal medicine. Looking at the wiki, even someone with 3 medicine will have a 99% chance for good treatment using herbal medicine as long as they have a medical bed and bionic arms. Regular medicine is expensive to buy, so herbal medicine is what I imagine most people trend towards in the beginning. Mid game though, you've probably got someone with a pretty good medicine skill, so you don't really need regular medicine as much. Super late game maybe you can afford to have someone spend all day crafting medicine, which doesn't even increase their crafting skill, but why bother? The only time I find myself wanting to use regular medicine is when I'm performing surgery.

Does regular medicine bring any advantages that maybe I'm unaware of? At the very least, I can't imagine that anyone leaves it as the default medicine quality. Certainly it's wasted on things like burns and cuts.

And what about glitterworld medicine? I can imagine the scenario where my doctor takes a bullet to the face and I need someone with only 1 point in medicine to save them, then it would be great, but why on earth is it the default quality of medicine?

[ArguedPiano]

I think you're right. Medicine does not seem to provide a noticeable difference.

Early game I tend to use no medicine at all for wounds until I can grow herbal. And even though my pawns receive poor treatments they 'almost' never die from infection or the likes.

It is however useful for surgeries, where there's a chance your pawn could die as well as serious diseases such as the plague. In situations such as this you want every advantage you can get as they can be fatal.

Where it takes medicine to make medical beds, I try to horde as much as possible.

Keep in mind that the Wiki does mention 'Full Bionics'. Which is arms as well as Bionic Eyes.

[Zhentar]

Before drugs, glitterworld medicine was invaluable as the only way to guarantee surgery success without a bionic doctor. Now, in A15 wake up will turn a mediocre doctor perfect and go-juice can make even terrible doctors great, so there's little need for glitterworld medicine.

[Blastoderm]

Always forbid using medicine because med beds require 10 of them. So only herbals for me.