A man has taken a moderate rib injury, possibly bad bruising or minimally broken ribs. Normally, broken ribs take 6+ weeks to recover.

Assuming he does everything right, eats correctly, does his physical therapy correctly, does not overdo, is in top physical condition to start, avoids complications, heals well, how long to regain function?

I'm fascinated by the little details professionals notice that most writers miss.

Whether you're a nurse, engineer, teacher, mechanic, architect, programmer, librarian, pilot, accountant, or anything else...

What's one small detail about your profession that almost never appears accurately in novels, movies, or TV?

It doesn't have to be a major plot point... sometimes it's the tiny everyday details that make a story feel authentic.

I'd love to hear your experiences.

I’m in the middle of my project and keep getting caught up in this scenario where the film trope chloroform would probably really come in handy, but I don’t really want to use that if I don’t have to.

Character A is going to kidnap Character B whilst she is asleep. Character A does not have access to their food/drink on the day they have to do this but has been able to steal a key, so can get into the house fairly sneakily. Character B can be a conveniently heavy sleeper also but ideally within the realms of reality.

So Character A gets into the house, can get into the bedroom, and then…ideally it’d be easier for him to restraint and kidnap B whilst she is asleep and have her stay unconscious until they get at least out of the house and well on their way.

Knocking her over the head would probably work and might be the best option? Chloroform or an inhaled anaesthetic would take several minutes - I guess maybe if it were held directly over B’s nose and mouth whilst she slept as a massive stretch? But probably the smell would wake her…Then I went the route of something like a ketamine injection in her thigh or butt. It would hurt and wake her up but I think also knock her out quickly enough (if A were prepared, and worked quickly) that it’d be a brief struggle?

I’m a bit stuck. It doesn’t hugely matter and I think I could probably go either just knocking her over the head or film trope chloroform but part of me would like to see if there’s anything else I could do that would be even slightly more realistic.

Ideally, something that affects people in their late teens to early twenties at the earliest, takes upwards of a year to develop, but doesn't show any visible or noticeable symptoms until the last few weeks of the patient's life. Testable in the early stages but not noticeable until it's "too late", so to speak.

Doesn't matter if it's genetic or acquired later on in life, or if it's treatable. Just want this guy to die!

Huge thanks in advance for any answers!

I have a few questions so I’ll put them in a list—

1. If a therapist is friends with someone who in the future needs a therapist, can they take the job for the friend? If yes, can they stay friends?
2. If a therapist provided services to someone who eventually no longer needs to come to them, could they become friends years in the future?
3. Similarly to 2, could they ever become romantically involved with a former client from multiple years prior?
4. Could 2 therapists provide services to each other, or is that ill advised and they should find others? And if they can provide each other services, could they stay friends? More like work buddies but also friends to a degree.

If anybody here is Scottish and was in secondary school in the early 90s please tell me what it was like. More specifically exams and stuff because I know that the system for exams is different now. Thank you!

(apologies if this can be found on google, i've tried but the ai responder refuses to give me a concrete answer)

situation: exposed leg fracture in the wilderness (rainforest, cold season), characters have no means to contact civilization for help, getting to a hospital will take them a week at best and they're not aware of this (entirely and wholly lost, no compasses, no means to make a compass, nada). please assume they're on their own and help isn't coming.
one of the characters, however, is a doctor. their specialization is tbd so if anyone has suggestions that would make it work best with this, they're welcome (they have an interest in prosthetics). they don't have much beyond what a basic first-aid-kit will net you, however, so they're lacking in proper supplies for an operation. the only thing they do have is what ammounts to small pincers that would let them... reach small crevices with ease and accuracy, so to speak. those can be sterilized (as much as a first-aid-kit will let you sterilize anything in that situation).

so my question is: would it be acceptable for the doctor to decide they are better off using the pincers to carefully put the bones back inside (after cleaning everything as best as possible) rather than waiting for help that won't arrive and betting their luck on finding a hospital before the wound gets infected?

i am aware the wound will most likely have to get infected anyway, i am aware there will most likely be complications from this, i don't care if the only sensible solution after everything is to amputate the leg - matter of fact, that would be ideal. what i want to know is if it would make sense for a doctor to make that call. the situation is, i think, very desperate; but i'm not a doctor, so i don't know if, despite there being no 'professional help' they can simply wait for, the correct call would still be to just... leave the bones poking out.

please also consider that the injured person still has to walk after this (obviously with help) the group has to keep moving, so the person would either have to walk or they'd have to be carried (i'm aware walking will most likely not be an option obviously). point being that if the bones stay poking out, they're gonna have to tread through high rainforest underbrush and sleep on the floor with those bones exposed.

if it would indeed be better to just leave the bones exposed, and then the wound gets infected anyway and an amputation is required; would the doctor blame themselves for the situation (thinking they should've pushed the bones in)? not necessary to answer, just figured i'd ask that too in case any doctors want to provide their two cents.

edit: for-posterity clarifications, consensus seems to be absolutely no pushing bones in so thank you all!

I have a character who had a chronic condition and have these symptoms. I googled for a bit but the results that it gave me didn't seems to be chornic conditions

For my story, I am looking for a small/medium medieval castle (9th-13th century) that has been completely demolished, so that very little or none of the ruins are left today. Something big enough to have some local villages or communities under its protection but small enough to be slightly backwater or not super important.

Bonus points: (optional)

the castle has history to it. Especially history about the nobles who lived there

It’s located in Western Europe, especially England/France

There is art/drawings of the castle or at least some knowledge of its layout (also great if it has a strong castle ascetic)

The castle was demolished in a dramatic way (war, revolution, etc)

The castle is remarkable in some way (though not too special. I want it to be an average castle that isn’t too important)

Hi! I’m writing a fantasy action story, and I’m trying to make my main character’s training more realistic.

She is a young woman with no previous combat or martial arts experience.

Her body remains physically human, but she has a powerful supernatural ability connected to distance and movement. It allows her to move very quickly, but it does not automatically give her balance, coordination, endurance, reflexes or fighting skills. Because of the circumstances in the story, she only has a few weeks of training before she may be forced into dangerous situations. I understand that this is not enough time to turn a complete beginner into a competent fighter, and I don’t want to write her as suddenly becoming an expert.

What would a responsible instructor realistically prioritise during those first few weeks?

I’m especially interested in:

- safe falling and basic movement;

- balance and distance control;

- reactions under pressure;

- basic physical conditioning;

- learning when to avoid a fight;

- preventing her from relying only on her supernatural ability.

What could she realistically improve during this time, and which beginner weaknesses would definitely remain? Would serious sparring still be too dangerous?

Advice from people with experience in martial arts, self-defence, military or security training, physiotherapy or similar areas would be especially helpful.

English is not my first language, so I used a translator to help me write this post. Thank you for reading!

Would they receive a CT scan or something that would show how deep it is before it is surgically removed? Or would they just go straight to surgery?

How long would the police have to wait to get complete phone records from a cell service provider?

It's a contemporary setting, medium-sized US city. I'm interested in how quickly they'd be able to have access to details about location data. The phone belongs to a murder victim, and the police do have the physical phone, if that affects anything.

Thanks!

Hi! I have questions on my FMCs career with and the happenings and findings in my wip In Jest.

I write dark romance thrillers and I'm working on the first book if a series centered around phobias.

My doctor has cholorophobia and is a pharmaceutical research scientist. She finds and investigates anomolies in a drug they're working on and its a whole conspiracy theory leading her to meet an assassin posing as a clown for a traveling circus which fronts a deep rooted criminal organization.

Now I've done a little googling and the engine has given me a bit to work with but i want to hear from someone in the field.

What are labs like?

A basic run of daily life at work?

Interns nicknames and how they are treated ( she's not the intern)?

The drug can cause a massive spike in libido as it's not nailed down yet as a weaponisable controlling drug. I have it currently as Halothane derivative. She realises tampering due to dopamine receptor spikes on chromatograms that are not normal. Is this viable?

I'm thinking about what traits to give to my vampires, and one option is to make them the ultimate social predators: They are amazing at reading people's emotions and overall status, which helps them select and seduce prey.

I've heard dogs can smell people's emotions and supposedly diseases as well. How far does/can this go? Could a vampire subtly sniff someone and get a detailed readout on their emotional state, then take a sip of their blood and comment on them lacking vitamin c?

I have a character whose throat is partially ripped out by dogs, including severe damage to the vocal cords. I’m aware this would cause either muteness or at the very least a horribly raspy voice, but would there be an effect on breathing or eating?

⚠️⚠️⚠️ Thank you to everyone who has helped! I have plenty of info to pull from now, and I will most likely only be using the first comments that came in. Once this play is finished, I will update this post again so you can see the info you have given me play out on stage! ⚠️⚠️⚠️

I am writing a play and it requires 2 scenes of hospital deaths. I would like to know what happens when:

1. A person on hospice care flatlines without a DNR while family is in the room

2. A person on hospice care flatlines with a DNR while family is in the room

3. A person in the ICU flatlines, specifically after a stabbing, no family in the room - just a nurse who is working on his IV

I would like to know what alarms sound, who enters the room, phrases said, and any major details. I won't need much visual description, both scenes happen with sound only. I don't want to use medical drama info only and I want more specifics than Google can tell me without getting flagged.

Thank you for any help!

hi! for context, i grew up with a single mom (zero connection to dad's side) and my family is TINY: just my mom, her parents, her brother, and his wife. because of this, we obviously spent the holidays like christmas and thanksgiving together and i never thought anything of it. now, i'm writing a character that has four younger siblings and extended family on the mom's and dad's side. for those of you that grew up in similar dynamics, how did you decide where to spend thanksgiving christmas etc? did you swap off year by year or was there a tradition for the same house to host each year? and how many people would be there for family gatherings? thank you!!!

I hardly ever use Reddit so if I make any mistakes please forgive me, but I'm writing a story about a young man who is a newly turned vampire and has to come to terms with his sudden need to drink blood alongside a bunch of other things.
I wanted to place the story in the real world, as some of the vampire characters are several centuries old, and I'm thinking about setting the story in Seattle, Washington (suggested by my father), and it takes place around 2015. However, my issue is I've only ever lived in a small town in the Midwest, and I'm a bit of a hermit that keeps to herself so I'm never truly up to date or fully understand news/events.
Are there methods that'll help me write this kind of story convincingly given the location and timeframe? I thought about using google maps for navigation but I'm afraid I'll just get lost or get something wrong.

I am currently writing a short story following a college student. They are attending a rather small (fictional) university based in NY, USA. They are just an average student, not particularly notable within their community.

Their professors know them as a good student, attentive and consistently on time/present.

Other than their roommate, who has seen their recent decline, and a counselor from campus med; no one knows that they are on the verge of a paranoid meltdown.

After a stop at a convenience store nearby, where they purchase some food and two bottles of sleep aid (melatonin, OTC and non-monitored in the USA from what I find), they fall off the face of the earth. They aren't seen anywhere. None of their classes, none of their clubs, not in their room/dorm/dining facilities etc.

Are their purchases before disappearing enough to raise suspicion? Would university/campus police department be contacted by the counselor?

Any insight would be helpful! Thanks in advance!

I have a MC who is a paralegal 0-1 years out of school—for plot reasons, I need her to be present for a client interview within a prison. Is this at all realistic? She can’t be a full-fledged lawyer due to her age, although she may pursue it later on.

I can absolutely get around it if I need to, because I’ve already established her as a bit of a nepotism baby who works for a family friend who is an attorney, so her presence at the interview could be more of a favor by the family friend to show her around the legal world despite her lack of experience. But I want to know if I should acknowledge this as a privilege she has, or if this is an actual thing paralegals might do.

I am writing a fiction story and I want to make sure I have my facts straight, or that they are at least reasonable.

For people who were in middle school in 2009 (specifically march 2009 let's say): 1) Were flip phones and feature (qwerty keyboard, like the tmobile sidekick) the most popular phones, like basically 50/50 in terms of popularity?,, AND, 2) Did you, or anyone you know, still pay per text (or perhaps I guess had like a 100 text limit,,, not unlimited)?

I ask this because I have a middle school character in 2009 (they are 12) that would have theoretically had a flip phone and definitely pays per text (so she prefers to be called) and I am trying to understand how reasonable that would be.

Some Pew Resarch from june to sep 2009, seems to suggest that pay per text was still at least somewhat common, especially for lower income folks: "Just 59% of white teen cell phone users in households with incomes below $30,000 have an unlimited text plan, compared with 79% of all other white teen cell phone users." (https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2010/04/20/chapter-one-the-basics-of-how-teens-acquire-and-use-mobile-phones/).

(I, myself, was in middle school from 2006-2008. I remember getting my first phone either 2006 or 2007 and it was definitely a flip, and, in the beginning, I definitely had to pay per text. By high school in 2009, I think I still had a flip but was on an unlimited (or effectively unlimited, like 500 texts or something) plan. But these things changed so so fast at the time, that I think the experience for a 12 year old middle schooler in 2009 could differ greatly from mine. I also don't remember too well if my friends were paying by text by that point. I ask here, because again, while I grew up around the age, the difference in years causes a huge difference and I forget what a lot of my peers had at the time too.)

Any info (especially if combined with your socio-economic background at the time, or your friends) would be super helpful and appreciated. Thank you!

I've been to many places in Greece but my setting is partially Afytos/Afitos. Any specifics I should mention for authenticity or any recent Greek cultural or political things I should be aware of. I was there 20 years ago. The settings will be an air bnb, a medical clinic, and restaurants/tourist areas.