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The Sims 4 Get to Work: Doctor

Treating, Diagnosing Patients & Career Rewards

A Doctor treats a patient in The Sims 4 Get to Work

The Sims 4's Doctor Career comes via the Get to Work Expansion Pack and is one of the most challenging Careers I've ever covered. In this Career, you will start with janitorial duties, interruption of actual Doctors with socials, and patient relations and proceed to being able to run your own tests and diagnose patients. As you go forward, the Career gets more defined although menial tasks will still pop up as objectives. You will eventually be able to perform surgeries and deliver Sim Babies as you advance, while your Sim will also have a clearer picture of what is wrong with the patient as they progress. The Doctor's Career level determines success rate with many interactions. Try to take care of patients as much as possible, and do not misdiagnose them, for fear of losing job performance! This guide should help you with those things, as I have a list of symptoms of each illness, while I'll also share the Doctor's career schedule and rewards.

The Hospital in Get to Work

The Ideal Mood for this Career is Focused, though it only helps to raise your Sim's work performance bar and does not factor into diagnosing patients. This is best done by using 'Ponder Moves' on a chess table before work or using Browse Simpedia at a computer. While at the hospital, you can use the computer to 'Research Health Reports on Medical Journal' and remain Focused (+2). This helps a lot. You can also hang Mathematical Diagrams (via Logic with an Easel) in the area where Patients are treated. For those who wonder, Logic does not factor into diagnosing at all. Only the symptoms narrowing via Doctor job rank and your own observations.

A mis-diagnosis is a bad thing for a Doctor. You'll take a performance hit when you're wrong about a patient's ailments.

General Advice for Doctors
At level 1, you won't have much to do regarding patients. Try to do things that are nearby in order to raise your performance. You have two days to get promoted, so it should be easy. Don't stay late, because two days is plenty of time to get your first promotion. At level 2, when your objectives change to feature more of treating patients, look for those that have already been diagnosed. This is required for the promotion. They should have a flashing red over them. You can administer the medication, even if you're not quite ready to deliver a full diagnosis. Your Career Performance will go up as you treat patients, though you may have a harder time finishing objectives within the 10-12 hour shift if you do too much of this. You get the little bumps from treating patients, and a big bonus at the end of the day based on the main bar at top left.

The first couple levels, you'll have to talk to co-workers a lot. Thankfully, it will get you through to more interesting objectives.

At level 3, you should see more medical tasks - lots of 'Examine Patient' interactions. You can then Transfer Case to a Doctor after you have done enough tests. Let new objectives come in as you clear them, so that you don't waste time. You may be called to do temperature, then check eyes. Pause to be more time-efficient, as objectives take a moment to come in. When you need to transfer a case, get a Doctor in conversation then use the 'Transfer' interaction to complete this objective. You may need to perform more tests to transfer the case. Again, look for patients with red flashes to deliver treatment. They've already been diagnosed and are ready for medicine.

The Chemical Analyzer is used to test patients' swab samples for diseases

When you do not have a patient to analyze, look to the front desk. You can admit patients to the beds yourself, and will often be forced to. Calibrating the X-ray machine gives you a Focused moodlet. You'll sometimes need to do this in order to get a better X-ray of a patient - Calibrate then 'Refer to X-Ray Scan' on the patient, later found under the Medical Referral menu. Know that the X-ray machine can be upgraded to feature faster scanning and become unbreakable, so long as your Sim has the Handiness Skill. At level 8, you can also upgrade the Analysis machine to make it unbreakable.

The treadmill test may result in narrowing down your diagnosis, but isn't really effective use of time until higher levels in the Career.

Mid Levels
Levels 4-5 can be a little tough, because you're not quite able to diagnose a lot of patients and will fail things like treadmill tests. Try to avoid those until later, while focusing on completing objectives to raise your performance. Try to get the two diagnoses down, but do not fail on them or you may end up losing huge chunks of performance - like a whole day's worth. Make sure you're right by looking at our symptoms list. It may not be as hard for you as it was for me if you can use the process of elimination along with the 'Diagnosing Patients' section below.

This Sim patient has burning belly, a nasty stomach illness that requires surgery

It gets a bit harder to advance from 5-7. Once you need three surgeries, you already have a decent job as a GP, but it will take time to need to do three surgeries. Sims may come in collapsed and need emergency surgery. Just keep at it, and some Sims will eventually need them based on your diagnosis. It may take 2-3 days of work, for there are only the emergencies and three rare types of illness that require surgery. It's easier after that, but you still do some waiting. If you like, you can misdiagnose Sims with Triple Threat or Burnin' Belly, which both require surgery, but that would be unethical!

You will get the ability to boss your coworkers around, but this won't do much, unlike in the Scientist Career where coworkers get promoted and can even be ordered to gather collectibles for you.

Diagnosing patients requires you to narrow down the symptoms and use some visual cues to help you figure out what's wrong

Diagnosing Patients
Remember, you get only ONE chance to diagnose a patient, and when you come in the next day that patient likely has an entirely different illness. It's random. Logic does not matter for this, nor does being Focused.

The more tests you run, the further you can narrow down a patient's diagnosis. But you will hit a wall and sometimes be left with 2-3 options. Try to do those tests that are tied to objectives, but remember that treating patients also boosts your performance. When possible, do more tests to clear objectives even if you know what ails a Sim. It is more important to do the successful treatments than the objectives, so long as you get silver or up.

A child Sim has diagnostic tests run. This will help to narrow down the symptoms to a specific sickness

The difficulty in this Career comes when you do not know exactly what is wrong with a Sim and can't get it narrowed down further than two or three illnesses. You should be sure to play on speed 1 and watch the patient. Do a test, then back off them and do something with another patient sometimes. This can let you observe the first patient's idle animations. Also, once all tests are done you can initiate regular conversations with them, then back off again. This sometimes gets the symptom animations to trigger.

After you've analyzed a swab, you may later take another, which sometimes will yield a direct result. Here are guidelines for assessing a patient's symptoms, some of which were provided by Dellena on our Forum. We also had extensive help with this list from officialghosts, to whom I owe a lot of thanks for their detail post on the matter, as well as images of symptoms to help you all!. Amaiyasai also contributed information on missing illnesses. Thanks to everyone involved, this guide is much better.

This is by a fairly comprehensive list, and should help you to rule out illnesses. See below the list for images of some symptoms, as well as a breakdown of symptoms and what diseases they could be:

Different rashes come with different illnesses. At the least you know they're definitely sick.

Diseases and Their Symptoms

• Rashes - These may present with any number of illnesses, so don't think right away it's itchy plumbob. They are meant to be indicators a patient is really sick, so you can rule out 'Not Sick'. Some rashes only present with certain illnesses. There are three types: swirly, orange and green spots, and tiger stripes.
• Sweaty Shivers - The patient may itch.
• Bloaty Head - look for the patient appearing to have a headache, and sometimes steam coming out of their ears. It is possible they can have orange and green spots, but primarily look for the steam.
• Starry Eyes - Gets dizzy and shows stars over their heads. They may also swat at invisible objects in front of them. If you see them swatting, it is surely starry eyes. They may also have a swirly rash.
• Llama Flu - The patient may shiver (fever), have a cloud of gas around them, cough, and sneeze. This sometimes presents with orange and green spots-type rash.
• Gas and Giggles - The patient will fart and giggle at random times, and sometimes presents with a tiger-stripe rash. Watch their idle animations for lots of laughing. Laughing itself is not necessarily a symptom, but they may appear to do so uncontrollably.
• Triple Threat - Dizziness, coughing. but lack of swiping as with Starry Eyes, and lack of fever as with Llama Flu. Requires surgery.
• Itchy Plumbob - May present with a rash (tiger stripes or orange and green spots) and the patient may itch a lot. You can tell this apart from Sweaty Shivers by the presence of the rash.
• Burnin' Belly - Visible stomach pain, maybe fever. Requires surgery and is a rare illness - perhaps the most rare of the diseases Doctors can diagnose.

The following set of images are courtesy of officialghosts on our Forum. Use this to help you narrow down illnesses, as I've used their list to help connect each symptom to a disease. If they have one of these symptoms, look up the illnesses above to see if they have other symptoms! You got this. The process of elimination is your friend.

Swirl Rash: it could be starry eyes or triple threat

Tiger Stripe Rash: could be gas and giggles or itchy plumbob

Orange and Green Spots Rash: could be sweaty shivers, itchy plumbob, or llama flu

Dizziness: could be starry eyes or triple threat

Fever: could be burnin' belly or llama flu

Headache: could be bloaty head

Stomach Ache: could be burnin' belly or gas and giggles

Swiping: a telltale sign of starry eyes is the patient swiping, looking like they're trying to bat away a fly.

Cough/Sneeze (no image): could be llama flu or triple threat

Smoke out Ears (no image): you'll know when you see it - it's bloaty head.

Itchiness (no image): could be sweaty shivers or itchy plumbob

Treating Patients
Diagnose an illness by selecting it when you're sure, and the treat option will come up. You'll know right after administering treatment whether it was a success or failure. Find this option on the social menu after you diagnose. Surgery only comes up with Triple Threat, Burnin' Belly, and when you need to deliver a baby at level 8 and up.

House Calls give you Career performance, but aren't necessarily the best use of your time

House Calls
Sometimes, your Doctor will get put on a house call to treat one or more patients. Click the front desk to do this. If you can't arrive within a couple of hours, they will seek help elsewhere. I skipped these a lot of the time, because they came up when I needed surgeries (later learning that you can sometimes refer a Sim to surgery while on a House Call). You can earn plenty of performance just doing duties at the hospital. However, it is time-efficient. You get a nice chunk of the day's performance for delivering the medicines.

The X-ray machine may be upgraded to be faster and auto-calibrate with Handiness. You can also make it unbreakable.

Treadmill and X-Ray tests
Find these under the Medical Referral social menu. These can help to narrow down illnesses, but will have a high failure rate until you're level 7+ in the Career. Until then, try to avoid them or else make sure that your Sim is Focused. A visit to the computer to get a moodlet beforehand can really help with this. Sometimes, you DO have to run the test twice, as the game indicates. They can be super helpful once your Sim is qualified to analyze the results of both tests.

A Doctor delivers a Sim Baby in The Sims 4 Get to Work

Delivering a Baby
This is a work emergency, which will only come up once your Doctor is level 8 and above. It's required to reach level 9. You've simply got to wait this out, and be sure to prioritize this over other patients.

Surgery is required for triple threat, burnin' belly, and delivery of Sim babies

Understaffed Day
There are sometimes days when your Doctor will have to do things like mop puddles, even as a surgeon. These occur on understaffed day, and may be annoying. You can tell if this is a result of a special even by mousing over the top-left workday meter.

Common Objectives
Here are some how-to's and efficiency tips for common tasks:

• Make Bed - Sometimes there isn't a bed to make. Do other objectives
• Mop Puddle - look about the hospital rooms for puddles. Don't let the Sim wander about cleaning unless there are more objectives
• Chat with Co-workers - You can use the same co-worker multiple times to fulfill this
• Transfer Patient Case - Early on, you will need to do this when you're not qualified to diagnose the patient yourself. I was unable to do it directly, possibly because of a bug. What you can do to get this to go through is get a Doctor (lab coat) chatting with you, then transfer the case.
• Work Emergency - Record Emergency Analysis Data - Click the front desk, then examine the samples and input data into a computer.

Doctor Career Levels

Doctor Career Unlocks and Uniform at level 10, Chief of Staff

Doctors at level 8 get the Sickness Resistant Trait, which will reduce or eliminate the chance they get ill. You will eventually learn to tell the gender of an unborn baby by talking to the mother (level 6) or father (assuming he's impregnated by an Alien!), and may also give medical advice to Sims.

Other Get to Work Guides

Expansion Guide
Retail Guide
Retail: Customers and Sales
Retail: Employees and Managing
Retail Perks in Get to Work
Aliens
Baking Skill Guide
Photography Skill Guide
Detective Career
Doctor Career, Diseases and Diagnosing Patients
Scientist Career
Planet Sixam (Alien World)

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