Can a Medtechie use Medical Tech for First Aid checks?
Or, in fact, is there any reason to, since it doesn't explicitly say a thorough patching up takes any more time than some first aid (other than not being able to use Medical Tech on oneself).
This brought up by the fact that First Aid is not a career skill for Medtechies.
The CP2020 book is as vague on that subject as in many others. When we played, we assumed that to be practically true, and achieving the same mechanical effect of stabilising the patient.
On the other hand, I also ruled that a stabilisation procedure with Medical Tech is more durable than with First Aid. It would hold the patient stable for a longer time before it "expired" and the patient was unstable again. How long was dependent on the cause and severity of the trauma. I also made a habit of telling the Medtechies that expiration date ahead of time, as they would probably know better, being medical professionals.
The Medical Tech (Medtech) skill is defined on p. 46 of the Cyberpunk 2020 book:
This is the skill used to perform major surgery and medical repairs. For more descriptions of this skill in action, see Trauma Team, p. 116.
On page 116 of the core book, it elaborates:
To make a successful medical skill check, you must roll a value [...] Medical skill checks are made with two skills, First Aid or Medical Tech.
And on p. 117, it further explains:
A character with Medical Tech skills makes a check as if using the First Aid skill, however, with Medical Tech, the patient will recover at the rate of 1 point per day. [...] Using Medical Tech skills supersedes the use of First Aid skills;
So yes, Medical Tech is used instead of First Aid, which is how I've always run my games (including several Trauma Team games) and any game of CP2020 I've played has done the same.
