How exactly does TJ manage to do surgery and make a vaccine?

[Allysseofthetau'ri]

More so, how exactly can so many SG employees in SG1, SGA, and SGU manage to be trained in fields that are far from their specific duties, I find this distracting... thoughts?

[escyos]

TJ wanted to be a doctor but had to start out as a medic. She would have had some training in tonnes of medical fields to be an effective medic. Its not like she took a 1 hour first aid course then shipped out.

[maneth]

Good question. On Destiny and to a lesser extent on Atlantis when they're cut off from Earth, they get a chance to do things they never would under normal circumstances. All military personnel are trained in basic first aid, TJ as a medic has some training but has help from personnel using the stones and later the ancient database.

People can have training in more than one field.

[Allysseofthetau'ri]

Yes, but a lot of the things these characters accomplish in one hour, day, or week take multiple phd holders years to do

[AlexanderD]

Yes, but a lot of the things these characters accomplish in one hour, day, or week take multiple phd holders years to do

The show takes artistic license.

[Dazzle foot]

How exactly does TJ manage to do surgery and make a vaccine?
Because she's brilliant!!!!!

[Gen. Chris]

Not to mention that, with no other choice, she's pretty much forced to learn or have people die or suffer.

[KEK]

Isn't a vaccine pretty much just a dead microbe that you allow your body to learn to kill? It doesn't seem too far fetched that one could be made, not with all the technology available to her. I mean, haven't we been making them since the 1800's or something?

[jeri]

Of coarse they had huge databases to help them. I'm sure TJ brought what data, which I think would be everything they could possible need, that they had on Icarus with her. Then they were getting into the Ancient database, slowly learning new things, and figuring out the sick bay devices.

[QuantumIguana]

Whipping up a vaccine is a real stretch, but surgery is realistic. There are circumstances where you might have to make do with an unqualified surgeon. If I absolutely had to, I could probably remove an appendix, and I have no medical training. You wouldn't want me to perform surgery unless it was that or death, of course.

[The Urban Spaceman]

Isn't a vaccine pretty much just a dead microbe that you allow your body to learn to kill? It doesn't seem too far fetched that one could be made, not with all the technology available to her. I mean, haven't we been making them since the 1800's or something?

Creating a vaccine is not just a case of injecting dead microbes into somebody and waiting for a miracle. Phagocytosis is an incredibly complex science and represents just one portion of the immune system. If the T-cells don't even recognise the antigen present on the surface of the pathogen, they can't trigger the correct immune response to counteract it, and all you end up doing is infecting the host.

[Dee_Too]

Whipping up a vaccine is a real stretch, but surgery is realistic. There are circumstances where you might have to make do with an unqualified surgeon. If I absolutely had to, I could probably remove an appendix, and I have no medical training. You wouldn't want me to perform surgery unless it was that or death, of course.

My father, who was a USN medic, almost had to attempt an appendix removal with a surgeon on the radio telling him what to do. Somewhere in the Pacific in 1945. In high seas. It didn't come down to that in the end, because they caught up to the USS Greeley in time, which had a surgeon, and managed the ship-to-ship transfer by boat. Though one man in the boat crew went into the sea and it took 30 minutes to rescue him. Seas were too rough for a buoy transfer.

I thought about that war story a lot during the SGU episode with the kidney transplant.

TJ had no opportunity to bring any data with her, except by chance. Whatever she had in her med kit. Whatever happened to be on laptops or storage drives that others happened to grab. The Alliance was attacking and the core had gone critical. After finding out they weren't going to Earth, there wasn't time to plan. They just grabbed up what they could near the gate. And TJ went directly to the gateroom after being dragged away from the physician she was trying to save--no dropping by her office en route.

Now, my father probably would have managed the appendectomy if it had come to that, so long as radio contact was maintained. He was the most experienced medic on board, and he was disciplined and intelligent. He would have followed the surgeon's instructions exactly and he had the fine motor control to pull it off. (For example, he was a 100-wpm touch typist on a manual typewriter.) But he was the WW II equivalent of an EMT, not a scientist, and he would not have been able to formulate drugs.

And neither would have TJ, without help. But she had more training in science and pharmaceuticals, and more recently. She planned to get her MD. And she also had lots of help, because by then the Destiny's Ancient medical database had been accessed and several of the PhDs were experienced in helpful scientific fields, such as microbiology. My father's "database" was whatever he remembered and a shelf full of ca 1940 reference books. This was enough for him to make the diagnosis.

D2

[Dee_Too]

And neither would have TJ, without help. But she had more training in science and pharmaceuticals . . . D2

And since she is fictional, she also had the supreme benefit of artistic license.

D2

[Gen. Chris]

And since she is fictional, she also had the supreme benefit of artistic license.

D2

The handiest attribute or skill to possess in fiction

[Kikyonyc]

I find TJ being able to do everything medical puzzling too, but most medicine portrayed on television are not realistic or accurate. Just ignore it and enjoy the show

[Dee_Too]

The handiest attribute or skill to possess in fiction

Indeed.

[jeri]

My father, who was a USN medic, almost had to attempt an appendix removal with a surgeon on the radio telling him what to do. Somewhere in the Pacific in 1945. In high seas. It didn't come down to that in the end, because they caught up to the USS Greeley in time, which had a surgeon, and managed the ship-to-ship transfer by boat. Though one man in the boat crew went into the sea and it took 30 minutes to rescue him. Seas were too rough for a buoy transfer.

I thought about that war story a lot during the SGU episode with the kidney transplant.

TJ had no opportunity to bring any data with her, except by chance. Whatever she had in her med kit. Whatever happened to be on laptops or storage drives that others happened to grab. The Alliance was attacking and the core had gone critical. After finding out they weren't going to Earth, there wasn't time to plan. They just grabbed up what they could near the gate. And TJ went directly to the gateroom after being dragged away from the physician she was trying to save--no dropping by her office en route.

Now, my father probably would have managed the appendectomy if it had come to that, so long as radio contact was maintained. He was the most experienced medic on board, and he was disciplined and intelligent. He would have followed the surgeon's instructions exactly and he had the fine motor control to pull it off. (For example, he was a 100-wpm touch typist on a manual typewriter.) But he was the WW II equivalent of an EMT, not a scientist, and he would not have been able to formulate drugs.

And neither would have TJ, without help. But she had more training in science and pharmaceuticals, and more recently. She planned to get her MD. And she also had lots of help, because by then the Destiny's Ancient medical database had been accessed and several of the PhDs were experienced in helpful scientific fields, such as microbiology. My father's "database" was whatever he remembered and a shelf full of ca 1940 reference books. This was enough for him to make the diagnosis.

D2

What about all the info that Brody and others had ready on their computers during Volkers surgery? It seemed to be what they had in their databases. I don't think they said they got it from Destiny? Then of course, power failure, screens go blank, and miraculously Dr. Perry materializes to TJ to walk her through the surgery, and Volker is saved.

I was under the impression that TJ did bring the data they had on Icuris, they certainly had a lot of gear packed along. In Air we see her with quite a lot of med supplies. The first thing she would have grabbed would be laptops, etc. and their emergency kits.

[Onealwasoverrated]

A genuine curiosity and a college education. I was always curious as to why Jack played dumb when he was an officer. Officers are college grads. He obviously is not that dumb or he wouldn't be an officer. It's also unrealistic in the fact that he's good in combat situations. In real life, the officer is more or less a guy that approves the plan of action, which comes from a platoon Seargent or Staff Seargent. If you've ever seen the movie "Battle: Los angeles", know that Staff seargent Michael Nantz was a very type of character, and in real life the officers often just "sign off" on what the enlisted man with the experience says to do.

Anyways, to answer your original question, a vaccine to many things is simple a low dos injection of a slightly altered "venom" that goes along with whatever is bothering you. Rattle snake vaccine or anti-venom is simply a low dose of the venom. It stimulates the immune system and "teaches" the body how to fight it off. The way I understood the vaccine that TJ made, is that she removed the harmful venom from the specimen, leaving only the DNA which actively faught off almost anything. It's scifi, yanno?

Surgery is nothing more than cutting and stitching. The difference is, the skill of the person doing the cutting. Many people in the military know basic anatomy. It comes in handy when your job is to kill people. It can also come in handy if you need to save someone. Any special forces person can tell you where all of the dangerous bleed zones are, and how to effectively avoid them, or go for them, depending on the situation.