Hospital Station [mass\_market] White, James [Dec 12, 1984]

This is the second installment of the Sector General series, about a huge multi-species hospital on the edges of the galaxy. Sector General is a hospital station—a place where all kinds of patients and medics from all worlds are welcome. But for the first time, the hospital is threatened by creatures too different its purpose, and so powerful that they can cause utter havoc! The book tells the story of the events that culminated in the Etlan War. Here are all the strange and not so strange creatures who inhabit James White's hospital in space as both doctors and patients: the human doctor Conway, plus two-ton doctors with four-ton patients, creatures which are multi-legged and telepathic, gas breathers, underwater behemoths—a wild and wooly assortment of denizens from all parts of the galaxy. "Sector General" is a mercy station—a place where all kinds from all worlds are welcome. But for the first time, the hospital itself is threatened by creatures too differnet to understand its purpose ans so powerful that they can cause utter havoc!

CALLING DR. CONWAY. . . There was a lot of talk about the vital importance of his new assignment, but it still seemed like a demotion to Senior Physician Conway. After twelve years of outstanding service—and the most incredible experiences imaginable—Conway couldn't quite appreciate the "honor" of becoming an ambulance attendant at this stage of his life. True, the insectile empath, Dr. Prilicla, would be with him—and so would the eminently desirable Nurse Murchison—but it was definately a comedown for a Senior Physican of his status to be conscripted as part of a first-aid team for disabled spacefarers. Then the first call came—and Conway faced the problem of treating a spaceship crew's mysterious ailment. . . without wiping out every patient and doctor in Sector General! A GRIPPING NOVEL OF A FUTURISTIC HOSPITAL'S BATTLE TO CONTAIN A POTENTIALLY DEADLY EPIDEMIC. . .

Four stories describe the efforts of the doctors in a futuristic hospital to treat strange creatures from outer space

Sector Twelve General Hospital had a staff of thousands divided among sixty or so intelligent species. Every day it treated alien illnesses of baffling complexity... Senior Physician Conway, the human doctor commanding the Ambulance Ship "Rhabwar," takes on a challenging and dangerous new assignment among a strange race of aliens.

Physician, heal thyself Surgeon-Captain Lioren of the Monitor Corps was a hard-driving perfectionist who expected the same high standards to be met by all who worked with him. But while on a First Contact mission on the planet Cromsag, where plague had reduced a peaceful civilization to barbarism and war, Lioren's perfection was his undoing. In his zeal to find a cure for the plague, he inadvertently caused the death of the entire planetary population. Lioren's guild lead him to seek a commensurate penalty—death. But the Monitor Corps was loath to waste talent. Instead, Lioren was stripped of his rank and assigned to Sector Twelve General Hospita as a lowly trainee in the Psychology department. Then Lioren met the huge alien Groalterri, the first of its kind to allow contact with the Galactic Federation. It was vital that Sector General succeed in curing the giant being, but it would not even speak to anyone—except Lioren. The medical problem was a simple one, but what the alien needed most was the one thing that Lioren could nog give. For before he could offer help, Lioren would have to do the impossible—forgive himself. . .

In this latest novel of the series, readers meet an alien chef named Gurronsevas who has come to Sector General to face the greatest challenge of his career—making hospital food palatable. His ensuing adventure combines interspecies administrative politics, ingenious science puzzles and a judicious admixture of action and adventure.

It's a massive hospital space station on the Galactic rim—384 levels, a staff of thousands—where human and alien medicine meet. But Patient Hewlitt, new to Sector General, doesn't want to meet alien medicine—or alien doctors, or alien nurses, or aliens of any kind. Which is just too bad; he's an interesting case, and he'll have to get used to it. In the meantime, it's always been an article of faith among Sector General's multispecies staff that infections can't pass from one alien race to another. But in this season of anomalies, it looks like they might have their first-ever interstellar virus on their hands, their tentacles, their cilla.... Combining intrigue, ingenious puzzles (and even more ingenious solutions), action, adventure and White's characteristic easy charm, Final Diagnosis is a science-fiction treat.

It's where human and alien medicine a massive hospital space station on the Galactic Rim, with 384 levels and a multispecies staff of thousands. In the course of practicing deep-space medicine, that staff has seen more than its share of challenges—from plagues caused by cafeteria food, to cafeteria food that resembles alien species. But now they are facing a disquieting new the terrifying Chief Psychologist, Dr. O'Mara, has been promoted to head of the hospital. Worse, he's been given the job on a temporary basis, for just as long as it takes to train his own replacement. After that, he is up for mandatory retirement. Nobody at Sector General can begin to imagine what they'll do without him—assuming they last long enough to find out.

Now, in the latest adventure, the empathic Dr. Prilicla, a veteran of Sector General for years, is put in command of an expedition answering three distress beacons. What he finds is two hitherto-unknown intelligent species, one of which has nearly wiped out the other. And he also finds evidence of a botched first contact—along with a rare opportunity to set matters right. Assuming, as always, that he can make an accurate diagnosis....