Where Trauma Team is located: The city "Portland" is referenced multiple times as being the location of the majority of the game. Makes sense that a simple name would be used, considering there are fourteen in the USA. That said, my interest was piqued when I learned there are bits in the Raging Bomber case that mention southern New Hampshire and Higgins Beach. The search could then be narrowed down. Searching and finding that Higgins Beach is an actual location in Maine, it's safe to assume that the game is set in Portland, Maine. This is backed up by there being an airport in the city. note the game calls it Portland Airport, but the actual name is Portland International Jetport. We can let that one slide.
That's all well and good and preamble, but here's the brilliance. I figured there was no way there could be a Resurgam First Care in Portland, ME, right? That'd be silly. Well, turns out there isn't, but here's the big one. "Resurgam" is a Latin phrase meaning "I shall rise again". Makes some nice referral to the idea of saving lives and all, but it's also the city motto of Portland, Maine. My jaw dropped.
And having looked up on the Caduceus Database, it seems this legwork was done already before my epiphany, so I may as well also mention that there's further evidence for the location: CIFM (where Naomi works) is the Cumberland Institute for Forensic Medicine. Cumberland County is in Maine. Also, Naomi takes a trip up to Oxford, which is in the mountains, a place that exists in Maine.
Also, Esha, the chief, mentions Peaks and Chebeague at one point. Peaks and Chebeague are islands off the coast of Maine.
Why is it that you get points bonuses if you complete additional parameters while operating in Trauma Team? Because not being thorough is an issue when performing routine procedures. You always hear of those medical horror stories of patients with medical equipment left behind, right?
During the GUILT outbreak in Elysium, Emilio, a former Sinner and one of the infected, claims that his history of being a Sinner gave him antibodies that could at least help buy him some time. He succumbs to the disease anyway. Why? Dramatic reasons aside, antibodies are very specific - what works for one strain of a virus will not necessarily work on the other. Given that Emilio was a Sinner for Pempti (based on location of his PGS and process of elimination) his antibodies would not help against Kyriaki.
You know how your assistant is always telling you what the next step in the operation is? They are consulting them on actions they have to take in order to finish the operation. It's better presented in New Blood and Trauma Team, both has full voice acting, as both the active surgeon and the assistant(s) are also letting them know of the procedure and the surgeon will let them know of any improvisations they need to take and follow up with them, a.k.a. they are the second opinion. More so with Maria, the paramedic, who typically has to go through her procedures by herself. Because of this she yells out the actions she has to take to constantly remind herself of the procedure.
This actually works wonderfully in Trauma Team during the final operation, CR-S01 and Maria have to perform a procedure quickly or they lose their patient. As such before starting the procedure, they discuss said procedure one last time. This works both in and out of universe, both doctors state that they are essentially performing a miracle thus CR-S01 needs to focus, and stopping the operation to discuss this allows him to refocus, allows Maria to get everything ready, and most importantly, allows the player to take a second to relax and be ready for the final steps.
Ever wonder why in Trauma Team things seem to go wrong during operations such as static in the guideline and the power going out? They aren't exactly a high tech hospital like Caduceus who has the full support of the government; this is a modest hospital and they can't always afford to update their equipment. In fact Tomoe's new endoscope was made on her own budget.
This also ties into why there's not a dedicated nurse or assistant for each operation in Resurgam. If Esha isn't the assistant, it's one of the other six doctors which includes a paramedic that would usually be on standby and a retired surgeon who became a forensic investigator. While Resurgam clearly has nurses around, there are possibilities of the hospital being short staffed.
For some of the tutorials of Trauma Team, it makes sense why they may have a tutorial or someone letting them know how to go about their operation style, even if it's themselves going through it.:
CR-S01 hasn't performed surgery in a long time; though he remembers certain techniques, the basics are another story.
Maria is always in a high pressure situation so she needs to constantly know what she needs to do. Bonus points for helping drown out distractions from others while she focuses.
Tomoe's endoscope is new and has never been used in an operation before so she needs to know that it's working properly.
Gabe just got RONI and it's like opening a new video game; you don't have personal settings settings up and it's assuming Gabe is a new user.
Hank tends to be a bit of a ditz. In addition, his operations have a lot of steps to it so his assistant will always run through a checklist of what he needs to do. He also has the most time to operate compared to the others so it doesn't hurt to remind himself how to work certain tools so he doesn't haphazardly rush through the operation.
Naomi basically changed occupations between games so it wouldn't hurt to know what she's doing.
In certain surgeries such as those dealing with the type of 'Unusual Tumors' supported by 3 blood vessels, the only realistic way for you to get all the special bonuses needed for an S ranking in the first try will be for you to having either watched a playthough or read a guide ahead of time, since the game itself doesn't actually tell you what needs to be done to prevent the tumors from regenerate until the second failed attempt at extracting them... Until you realise that on a meta-level, in order for you to truly be considered a 'Master Surgeon' it is after all part of your responsibility as a doctor to be reading up on all the latest medical journals ahead of time before performing a surgery!
In Trauma Team, during your first diagnosis mission, RONI mentioned that based on the available data, she calculated that there is a 90% chance that Gabe is in fact a human, with him responding by saying that he doesn't want to know how she came to the conclusion of that 10%.... The answer's simple: Gabe is in fact a video game character! And that 10% came from when he broke the fourth wall by addressing the player directly at the end of the game as the honorary 7th member of the team!
In the final mission of Trauma Team, how did Gabe knew of a certain 'skilled surgeon' (Heavily implied to be Derek Stiles) who advised him on how to treat the Twisted Rosalia inside Naomi's heart? Remember that in one of Gabe's early cut scenes, the Chief invited him to go with her to a medical conference in Japan. In the Japanese version of Under the Knife and Second Opinion, the story took place in Japan; While in the English version, Derek has been traveling around the world on-behalf of Caduceus. That conference was most likely where Gabe met Derek off-screen.
For anyone that ships Derek and Angie may be disappointed when she is referred to as Thompson during New Blood. However, regardless if they did get married or not between games, chances are she still would have want to be referred to as Thompson as it's not uncommon for a professional nurse like her to be referred to by their maiden name.
In New Blood, operation A-4 provides a simulation of patients infected with GUILT. Even though GUILT isn't running rampant by that time, that doesn't mean it's gone completely. Under the Knife 2 saw the return of GUILT thus it can be assumed that GUILT may return if someone decides to revive it. And if said programmer assumed that GUILT "could" return, than so could Stigma, thus adding in scenarios where a doctor may have to deal with both at the same time, even if it was a trial simulation.
In surgeries before Trauma Team, when faced with multiple patients, the surgeons decide the order based on vitals. Meanwhile First Response encourages the player to swap between patients, though you are allowed to go one at a time. That said, consider that multiple surgeries not only take time, but requires a complicated set of procedures to do, it's better to do one at a time, even if its at risk to the upcoming patients. First Response is an emergency scenario. Paramedics need to do a quick patch job before sending them for further examinations and they don't have the time to figure out an order to them.
Fridge Logic
In Trauma Center 2, they say that the two Sinners and Adam's son react violently to the anti-GUILT serum because they have GUILT that hasn't been encountered before so the serum doesn't properly take that into account like the spore tumor one. However when you do surgery on them they have the 3 GUILT strands from the previous game and ones known to be cured by the serum.
They may be the same strains as the Under the Knife ones, but they've mutated significantly (Queen Kyriaki, four/five-color Tetarti, dual core Pempti). It stands to reason they also mutated in a way that made the serum activate them... or that the serum was just plain bad to begin with given that Caduceus's anti-GUILT serum actually works on the complete unknown that is Aletheia.
Instead of expecting the surgeon to constantly inject vital fluid during operations where their attention is needed practically everywhere at once, why don't they just hook up the patient to an IV filled with the stuff?
During the Rosalia Virus outbreak in Trauma Team, what exactly was Caduceus doing about the epidemic threatening to wipe out the entire population of the US in a matter of weeks, and why were there no mentioned of them?
Given that the USAMRIID was actively attempting to cover up the Rosalia pandemic, and that Caduceus's main headquarters is quite a ways away from Portland, Maine, it's possible that Caduceus simply wasn't able to provide aid due to being tangled up by the Army.
Under the Knife 2, Level 6-1. You are told that, due to the Hands of Asclepius taking the majority of Caduceus' personnel away, there aren't any syringes to inject stabilizer with. However, for some reason, you still have as many syringes as you need to inject sedative to suppress the toxicosis caused by Post-Guilt Syndrome.
It could be that stabilizer requires specialized syringes (explaining why using stabilizer reduces the "durability" of the syringe, and generic syringes can handle the sedative.
Fridge Horror
In Under the Knife and Second Opinion, Tyler Chase makes the decision to euthanize Amy without even asking for her consent and doesn't seem to see anything wrong with that until she tells him to his face that she wants to live. Given that we know that he's been working as an euthanasist for quite some time before that, this kind of raises the question whether he has euthanized patients without their consent before - and regardless of one's stance on voluntary euthanasia, it's hard to call involuntary euthanasia anything other than straight-up murder.
In New Blood, after successfully curing a patient of Stigma while on live national TV on Miracle Surgery after Dr. Bello failed to do so, Valerie made good on her promise of forcing the network to cancel the program for good. While this was certainly satisfying considering how Bello and the show's hosts were both jerkasses that slandered Caduceus' reputation.... Putting its ethically questionable and sensationalist nature aside, in the end of the day, the show DID offer a way for economically disadvantaged people without health insurance a way to receive life-saving surgery at the hands of a world-class doctor that they have no hope of getting otherwise. With Miracle Surgery being taken off the air, the network will no longer have a reason to keep Dr. Bello on their payroll, and all those patients will be left on their own with very little hope of getting much needed treatment.
Caduceus can always push for more funding and support through the government, arguing that their facilities are not only more advanced facilities and staffs who put profit and fame before saving others. Plus patients will get to enjoy actual confidentiality instead of being an onscreen guinea pig for Bello or in this case, Stigma which probably turned off a lot of would be patients as the one patient infected would have died and spread his disease to countless of viewers and staff.
Turns into Fridge Brilliance when you realize the producers wouldn't cancel the show just because Caduceus complained. They canceled the show because after Dr. Bello failed such a critical operation on the air and had to be saved by someone he had just spent two previous episodes publicly mocking and humiliating, the show was totally screwed. Reality TV shows don't survive on-air highly-publicized disasters like that, the producers knew it, and they canned the show because the public relations blowback would have been impossible to deal with.
Sadly, Angie's treatment towards Linda isn't all that uncommon in Truth in Television; a surprising percentage of nurses have a reputation for bullying their patients.
