Colonists never seek medical help. Doctors let people die.

[Lightzy]

Even if bleeding out to death, even if very sick, even if injured in minor way but a way that might lead to infection.
This is INCREDIBLY annoying. You set "patient" to priority 1 and it doesn't do a fucking thing


Also, if the doctor is doing something else (for example research), he'll let patients die even if doctoring is set to priority 1 and research is set to priority 2

[Calahan]

Please can you post a vanilla save game where this issue is occurring.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Even if bleeding out to death, even if very sick, even if injured in minor way but a way that might lead to infection.
This is INCREDIBLY annoying. You set "patient" to priority 1 and it doesn't do a fucking thing


Also, if the doctor is doing something else (for example research), he'll let patients die even if doctoring is set to priority 1 and research is set to priority 2

Jobs have time lengths before they will check for a new job. I think many of the jobs have different time lengths or 'number of ticks' is probably the correct Rimworld term, research is one of the longer ones. A simple draft/undraft should get your doctor doing medical. Sounds like it is working as designed.

[NeverPire]

Once healed, you need to have "Rest" in priority 1 to keep them on bed.

[{insert_name_here}]

I usually have everyone drafted during a battle, even the pacifists (so they don't stupidly wander into the battlefield). Once the fight is over, everyone gets undrafted and the doctors automatically re-prioritise to care for the patients. If you don't want to draft everyone during a battle, then draft and un-draft EVERYONE afterwards so that the priorities automatically reset. If you're doing this and it's still not working, then it's probably a bug.

[ison]

"Patient" work type in A17 used to work only on colonists which are about to die. I've improved it in A18, so it should be much better now.