Kankonian hospitals run on the Hosho code, developed by Hosho Antimony Salas. This is a consent-based system, in which no person may be operated on against his or her consent, regardless of age, mental illness, or intellectual disability. Vaccinations occur at age 5 for mumps and hepatitis, and age 6 for smallpox, yellow fever, vaipas and treshis. At 7, children are vaccinated for dysentery, chicken pox (if they haven't already gotten it), leprosy, meningitis and diphtheria/pertussis, and at 8 they receive their laryngitis, malaria and pneumonia vaccines. Even then, the hospitals ask the child whether she or he would like to be vaccinated. To inform the patient of whether his or her body will react adversely to or even be killed by a prospective vaccine, doctors and nurses will perform a reactest -- running a test on the patient's DNA to predict his or her body's reaction to said medication. Medical personnel who specialize in reactests are called reactesticians in LIE. Doctors also check the body for immune disorders, as an acquired immune disorder (like AIDS on Earth) can make a vaccine harmful even if a patient's genome poses no problem. Safe vaccines now exist for over 1,300 diseases in human medicine in the Lehola Galaxy. Obtaining consent from the unconscious posed an ethical dilemma until the thirty-third century, when brainreaders were introduced to Kankonia. A brainreader is a machine that reads a person's brain. If the brainreader indicates that a person would like medical treatment for such a condition, the doctors go ahead; if not, they do not treat the unconscious patient. No hospitals perform circumcisions nor clitoridectomies. Musefi-run hospitals do not remove appendixes, spleens or other organs, in keeping with the Musefi concept of wholeness (hunter). If the nearest hospital is Musefi and the patient wants his or her appendix removed, fast, a telambulance (teleporting ambulance) will be called to teleport the patient to the telecenter at the nearest non-Musefi hospital.
The standard used in the Hosho code is explained consent rather than informed consent. Doctors are required to honestly discuss diseases and treatments and side effects and survival rates with their patients, not withholding any relevant information, and are required to explain it the best they can to the patient's level of understanding, but the patient is not required to demonstrate understanding, nor required to be presumed to have the cognitive capacity to understand, as categorically presuming people incapable of understanding would allow for sweeping discrimination on the basis of age, neurotype, or IQ that would result in operations unacceptable to the people upon whom they are performed.
The Hosho code requires that all doctors and nurses keep their instruments clean. Reusable objects like eye picks and dental scalers must be sterilized after each patient. Such objects as syringes must be incinerated after the doctor, nurse, dentist, or veterinarian is done using them. All medical personnel are also required to wash their hands after seeing each patient, with bactericidal soap.
Phagophobia, a disease that makes its victims refuse to eat, has been an epidemic in the last two centuries. It is believed this disease started out on Junsu, and increased Kankonian-Junsuvian contact resulted in more Kankonians getting this disease. Phagophobia is caused by a virus called ksoban. Unless they are force-fed or have food injected into them, phagophobes will become increasingly sweaty and jittery at the thought of eating. Eventually they waste away and die of starvation. 2.5% of the human population on Kankonia currently has phagophoia.
Treshis is a disease that originated on Hegheos and was spread to Dumang in the 210's while Hegheosiks of Rasaphi faith were converting Dumangians. Treshis causes half the face to swell up and turn yellow, accompanied by fever and intense sweating. The immune systems of the Dumangians, unfamiliar with treshis, could not handle it, resulting in the deaths of thousands of native Dumangians. Treshis is caused by a protist called the inunu. Vaccination keeps treshis under control, but an occasional person who refused the vaccine will come up with it.
Vaipas is a deadly disease that was once rampant on Povoi. From the seventh until the twenty-third century, entire communities were infected by this disease now known to be caused by a bacterium called the kevwe. The face turns a sickly purplish-red, and uncontrollable coughing reminiscent of whooping cough soon ensues. People with vaipas will often cough so hard they vomit. Heart valve disease may also result. Even when a person is not vaccinated, vaipas responds well to antibiotics.
Cancer was once a major killer of older people, but now liver, brain, bone, pancreatic, testicular and breast cancers all have vaccines. An estimated 2% of human deaths and 5% of zhoar (non-human sapient) deaths are caused by cancer, most often lung cancer. Cures exist for bone, pancreatic, testicular and breast cancers, as well as most cancers of the eye. Leukemia is now almost never fatal, but the treatments still result in a bald head.
Nosardem is caused by a protozoan called the salisul. An affected person loses his or her sense of time. Nosardem patients will be unable to tell whether 5 seconds or an hour has passed. Although always wearing a watch can help nosardem patients determine the time, they will not be able to guess on their own how long it has been. Dizziness and feelings of disorientation are also common in nosardem. There is no safeguard against the salisuls and no vaccine. Nosardem may go away after several years, or a person may live hundreds of years with nosardem before dying with it.
The opoltzok lotus contains a deadly substance called opoltzok that looks like black ash. This substance was used for warfare and bioterrorism in antiquity. Opoltzok leads to a fatal disease called kogharz in which red bumps appear all over the skin and the tongue and gums turn black. Fatalities from kogharz are seldom heard of these days though, as Emse Niobium Sasha discovered a cure for kogharz in 3143.
Kankonians tend to look grubby and their hygiene looks bad to people on other planets. Lice are a major problem on Kankonia; the planet has never been able to wipe out its headlouse and crab louse population. It is estimated that 3.3% of sapient beings on Kankonia are infected with lice at any given moment. Scabies is also common in the cities, where you will see people scratching their groins in public. Almost as bad as the louse epidemic is the spread of the mobova, an ant-like insect that burrows under the skin and turns the skin an irritating flaky white. These social insects are very hard to get rid of, as a queen and one male breeder can start a whole colony under the skin if the two manage to burrow in.
The most common STD's on Kankonia are gonorrhea (3.3% of Kankonian humans over 13), chlamydia (2.7%), herpes (2.4%), NGU (1.9%), spermivorosis (1.6%), syphilis (1.4%) and thrush (1.4%). Spermivorosis was introduced from Mensinghi, perhaps the most common xenonosis (disease that crosses over between two different species of sapient) on Kankonia. Protists called hwangkuinghwomyuns live in the genital area, including the testicles of men afflicted with the disease, and their diet includes sperm. If a man's case of spermivorosis gets too severe, all his grown sperm will be eaten and he will have trouble conceiving a child.
Hospitals avoid the stigma of being associated with suffering and death by doubling up as general wellness centers. They sell vitamins and dietary supplements, both scientific and naturopathic. Classes of schoolkids often take trips to the hospital to learn about the human body and nutrition. Transportation to and within hospitals is speedy, and highly advanced scans of the human body prevent misdiagnoses.
Special hospitals are also run for zhoars on Kankonia -- there are Domehead hospitals, lef hospitals, Grey hospitals, and so on. Xenodoctors practice xenomedicine, transporting bodily samples from one sapient species to another. This mainly occurs aboard spacecraft, but there are also xenohospitals on Kankonia that specialize in such operations. Xenomedicine can give strength and genetic diversity to dying species, or sometimes even dying individuals.
Hospitals also work as centers for obstetrics. 99.7% of Kankonian babies are born in hospitals today. Mothers are allowed bedrest for as long as they need to recover. Both vaginal births and Caesarean sections are performed. The drug pluma makes labor painless.
Cures exist for Lou Gehrig's disease, Lyme disease, malaria and most cancers. Kankonian alternative medicine also provides acupuncture and herbal remedies; doctors will give their patients hyssop, ashwagandha, Winter's bark, urinedew and St. John's wort.
Longeve (technology to prolong the life of a sapient species), including homolongeve (technology to prolong human life) has wrought wonders for the human lifespan, and dulled the edges of the pains of old age. Today the average life expectancy for a Kankonian human is 550 years (504 years on Earth), although it's not uncommon to live to 1,000. This has slowed down social change on Kankonia. Lifespeeding (using a "bubble" called a speeder to take a child from birth to young adulthood in a matter of months) is also sometimes used on Kankonia; seeing children out and about is less common than it used to be. Abortions are not performed for unwanted fetuses; rather, the fetus is placed in a device called a Dzasta bowl, where it receives nutrition until bowlbirth (the moment a baby leaves a Dzasta bowl).
Blood tests use a blood teleporter. This teleports a sample of the patient's blood from the left arm to the blood bottle. Thanks to this technology, a syringe is not required. Some blood is collected at each physical to test for blood diseases, as well as other diseases in lower-scale hospitals where an HHH scanner is not present. Most Kankonians know their ABO blood type and Rhesus factor.
The knee-jerk test is used to test reflex. Vision is tested through a Kankonian eye chart, which has Kankonian letters. The first four lines on the Pusha Chart, a standard Kankonian eye chart, read pop | it mopha | shekh zeki thigum | bisp tzapak nid udu. To test smell, the patient closes her eyes and the doctor places three items which must be identified in front of her nose. The ten possibilities are coffee, lemon, cherries, mothballs, peppermint, household ammonia cleaner, yellow paint, almond butter, roses and aftershave. Touch is tested through a test called the palatoni; the doctors asks the patient to close his eyes, and explains that she will tap him on the shoulder. For nine iterations, the patient must say whether he is being tapped on the left shoulder, the right shoulder or both shoulders. Hearing is tested through an audiometer, as well as having a word played on a word audiometer. The word audiometer will play Kankonian words at different volumes, and the patient must tell the doctor whether the word she heard was, for instance, "magesi", "yagel", "yakte*" or "yadess".
Orthodontics is often done with good old-fashioned braces, and starts at age 13. Invisalign is also used. However, there are now surgeries that can straighten teeth in a matter of hours. Not all health insurance plans cover these, however, as they are in the order of 60,000 pokhales.
8% of Kankonians have bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is known in Kankonian as zabuwelmios, from the Kankonian architect Zabuwelm, who is believed to have had this disorder. In Kankonian psychology, a person can either be diagnosed with bipolar I disorder (if there is mania), bipolar II disorder (if there is only hypomania) or cyclothymia (hypomanic but no mania, plus depression without major depressive episodes). To be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a person must have had at least three of the following in his or her manic or hypomanic episodes: rapid, manic speech; reckless sex; going out of one's way to do things for other people; reckless money spending; distractibility; or going 24 consecutive lamas (1.5 days) without sleep.
10% of Kankonians have obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD is known is Kankonian as phaetlaia, from two psychologists who described the disorder in the nineteenth century, Phaet Vanadium Sari and Laia Ununnilium Dzon. An additional 10% may have pure O (known in Kankonian as kalhaoul). 4% of Kankonians have trichotillomania, and 6% have dermatillomania. Similar is Have's disorder (named after psychologist Have Iodine Tarab in 2144), the compulsion to walk in the same spot with one's right foot that one has walked with one's left foot and vice versa, which is found in 0.8% of Kankonians.
An estimated 3% of Kankonians have Asperger's. Asperger's is known in Kankonian as themesaez, from two psychologists who described it in the twentieth century, Theme Dysprosium Vak and Saez Neon Golada. "Themi" has become slang for "socially inept". To be diagnosed with Asperger's as it is understood on Kankonia, a person must meet at least three of five criteria: (1) inability to read non-verbal cues: either facial expressions, tone of voice, posture and/or gestures; (2) an obsessive special interest (either one that one pursues all the time, that one monologues about, that gets in the way of daily activities, or that captures one's interest to the exclusion of other interests); (3) dislike of social interaction and/or social anxiety; (4) trouble making friends; and (5) a need for routine (including feelings of stress or meltdowns if one's routine is changed).
An estimated 0.7% of Kankonians are schizophrenic -- including, some of his detractors speculate, Hetenemphra, the founder of Musefism. To be diagnosed with schizophrenia on Kankonia, a person must demonstrate at least two of the three positive symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, and disjointed or random speech) and at least two of the four negative symptoms (flat affect, being unmotivated, poor friendship formation, and anhedonia).
Tourette's is known in Kankonian as wayadone, after the neurologists Waya Beryllium Nadia and Done Boron Sand, who read about the syndrome from accounts on other human-populated planets in the seventeenth century and identified it in four of their own patients. An estimated 4.4% of Kankonians have Tourette's at some point in their lives. To be diagnosed with Tourette's, a person must have at least three different tics, at least one of which is a bodily tic and at least one of which is a verbal tic.
3.1% of Kankonians have social anxiety disorder, known as nerisas na treshos shuyesmeyi (disorder of interpersonal anxiety). It was first described by the psychologist Hapha Sodium Debo in 1344. The absence of social norms and freedom of people to "be themselves" in Kankonian culture is believed to account for social anxiety disorder being less prominent than in, say, Terran countries. It is diagnosed on Kankonia via Vuwi Aurelium Andon's Vuwi Test, a 24-item self-quiz; scores of 13 or higher indicate social anxiety disorder.
Bodily integrative identity disorder is known in Kankonian as otlahezhi, named after psychologists Otla Stannum Lisha and Hezhi Curium Gary shortly after Hosho developed his code. There is no known cure except for amputations, but psychologists treat 18,000 cases a year. Psychologists will wait six months after the BIID sufferer reports his or her suffering for him or her to change his or her mind. If he or she still wants the body part amputated, the psychologist will go ahead with it. The Hosho code allows for such amputations as long as they are consensual.
Borderline personality disorder is known as nerisas na Gomo (nerisas means "disorder") after Gomo Potassium Ani, a psychologist who described it in 1670. An estimated 4% of Kankonian humans over 13 have borderline personality disorder. At least three of the following criteria must be met for a diagnosis: (1) acting impulsively; (2) becoming petulant when criticized for acting impulsively; (3) black-and-white thinking; (4) bursts of tzefratzeo (rage); (5) self-injury; (6) threats of self-injury; (7) feelings of hopelessness or emptiness. Borderline personality disorder is popularly known as Tzefratzeo, or The Rage, and may have been described by fourth-century philosopher Andimas' definition of the word "tzefratzeo": "The strongest and most explosive of the emotions, in which one is driven into blind anger and an inability to accept something so strong one will stop at nothing, one in which fire burns out of control in one's vocal and physical expression of anger, and all reactions against that anger from others only make the angry reaction stronger, as if setting up oily rags".
Post-traumatic stress disorder is known on Kankonia as nerisas na Zadoer, after the ninth-century Hegheosik historian Zadoer, who described it in some empire soldiers. Today it is found in 7.6% of Kankonian human women and 3.0% of Kankonian human men at some point in their lives. 24% of people who have ever been members of the Vigilante Squad will suffer it, as will 12% of Kankonian expatriates on other planets.
Akhme's disorder was named by the psychologist Akhme Gadolinium Rafi in 2014. People with Akhme's disorder have trouble with tasks like spelling, understanding rhymes, alphabetical order or using a pronunciation key. While most adult Kankonian speakers would instantly come up with "tzenos" if you said, "A word beginning with tzapak that rhymes with 'zenos'", an Akhme's sufferer could not come up with the word. Akhme's sufferers also have trouble learning to separate spelling from pronunciation, phonetically transcribing words, and learning to read in foreign languages. An estimated 10% of Kankonian adults have Akhme's disorder.
An estimated 3% of Kankonians have multiple personality disorder. 0.7% have schizoid personality disorder, known as nerisas na Egli (after psychologist Egli Sodium Frantza, who described it in 1784). 6.0% have schizotypal personality disorder, known as nerisas na Sheet (after psychologist Sheet Tungsten Ron, who described it in 2020). 7.3% of women and 5.4% of men have histrionic personality disorder, known as nerisas na akwovis, "disorder of the thespian".
Veterinary medicine also cures many diseases of livestock, including laminitis and most diseases of camels (such as surra, hoof-and-mouth disease, mange and ingestion of sand). Major diseases include jaagsiekte, ruditz (a prion-caused disease found in wenschars), ibophor (a prion-caused disease found in fezinas) and langsemi (a disease of fezinas caused by an intestinal parasite, the lulan, which resembles a piece of fettuccine).
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