You are a Nurse. While some would say that the Doctor is more important, you have training in administering medication, controlling aggressive or psychotic patients, straitjacketing out-of-control patients, throwing unwanted guests out of Medbay, and discussing a patient's medical history and treatment plan with them while the doctor deals with the umpteenth new trauma patient who just broke into Medbay.
You spawn with some basic first aid supplies in the Recovery Ward, and can find more specialized first aid kits close to hand when needed, along with the supplies in Medical Storage.
Bare minimum requirements: Help the Doctors do their job, act as an intermediary when the Doctors are busy, handle unstable patients.
As a Nurse, you are responsible for the patients in the Medbay wards, ensuring that their long-term needs are met, explaining a doctor's prescribed form of treatment and any notations on the patient's medical records, fetching doses of medication from the Pharmacy for those recovering in the Recovery Ward, and so forth. You have basic first aid competence, and can patch up wounds, but anything more complicated means it's time to call the Doctor.
You'll find nurse suits and scrubs here in Medical Storage, in case you want a different outfit, and various medical supplies for doing your job, such as bed linens and pillows, more first aid supplies (if the looters haven't gotten to them), latex gloves, and a pharmacy SmartFridge for getting those important common medications filled more conveniently (assuming the Chemist or Pharmacist is doing their job).
You may be called upon to assist in surgery, usually to fetch tools, assist with anesthesia, or similar requirements, while the Doctor or Specialist does most of the actual doctoring. Don't worry about performing surgery yourself except in the most extreme emergencies.
Setting up Cryogenics is easy and simple. Idiot-proof, even, but many forget to do it until it's too late. Technically this is the Doctor's job, but Nurses can handle it too.
Firstly, fill the tubes with Cryoxadone - beakers should be on the table. Next, turn on the freezer and set the temperature as low as possible.
Before placing someone in cryo, connect one of the O2 canisters (next to the freezer) to its port; there's a wrench nearby to do this. Be sure to disconnect the canister once the patient is healed, otherwise you'll waste the O2 inside (having someone die in the tube because the canisters are empty is never fun). Also, be sure to remove any insulated bodywear such as RIG suits, fire suits and bomb suits. People that have received cold resistance superpowers from the Geneticist can't be chilled in cryo and will have to be treated with alternative methods.
Cryo is awfully slow these days, so you might want to just inject some cryoxadone into your patient and put them in a cold shower. Medbay has a shower in virology's access room, and you can wrench the shower to make it pour out freezing water.
If a patient is in critical condition and a Doctor isn't available, you're responsible for providing the first response (technically the Paramedic is, but let's not split hairs; if they're in Medbay they're your problem.) Get them out of the entrance area, and strip any external suits they may be wearing, as well as their clothes (they usually have underwear, relax), so you can see injuries and respond accordingly to them. Start with any visible bleeding wounds; bleeding out is guaranteed to kill most patients regardless of their remaining health, and doing so will usually patch up some Brute damage in the process. Apply topical Brute and Burn therapeutics as needed and alert Doctors so that they can take over when available. If Cryo hasn't been set up properly, throw them in a sleeper, fill them with rejuvenators, and set up Cryo. Once cryo is set up, stuff them in a cryo cell and switch on the cryo, then make sure their stuff is put into one of the patient lockers for them to retrieve once their life-risking near-death experience is over. When that's done, click on the tube to analyze their health, and make sure their health is improving; if it's not, check that their body temperature is actually low, they're not wearing a hardsuit or anything else that blocks temperature, the freezer is on and that the connected O2 canister still has pressure. If they are still in critical condition, leave them to cool off a bit longer. If not, heal them normally, accept their kudos (or sarcastically do so if they offer none) and then send them on their way.
If a patient has died recently, you may be able to use the defibrillator to revive them on the spot. The defibrillator can be found in Medical Doctor lockers (plus a more portable version in the CMO's locker), and is usually used by up-and-coming paramedics.
To use a normal bulky defibrillator, take off your backpack or satchel, put the defib on your back and click it, get your other hand free and activate the paddles to wield them in both hands, then click on the patient while targeting their chest. If the patient is wearing a thick suit like a space suit or firesuit you need to strip it off as well.
In order to successfully resuscitate a patient, several criteria must be met:
1. The patient must not be dead for more than two minutes.
2. The patient must not have over 180 brute or burn damage; 179 brute and 179 burn is fine, just not 180 of one type.
3. The patient must not be a suicide.
4. The patient must not be catatonic.
5. The patient must be in their body (they will get a message when they begin being defibrillated).
If all these factors are met, then the patient will come back to life! However, this doesn't mean they can just get right back up. Instead, they'll likely still be deep in critical condition, as a successful revival only removes a bit of each damage type. They must quickly receive medical attention if you want to keep them alive. Make sure to use a health analyzer or your PDA to check how they died; if they have toxins in their body, they most likely still do (chemicals remain in bodies after death, but do not metabolize).
Alternatively, you can disable the safeties on defibrillators in two ways: emagging it or having it be hit by any form of EMP (you can re-enable safety by doing the same thing again). The emag does it silently, but the EMP makes the defibrillator emit a warning sound. When the safeties are off, help intent functions normally, but harm intent will instantly stun the victim for the duration of a stun baton as well as doing a large amount of stamina damage.
If nobody else will, you can manage Medibots with your ID, alter their settings, and fill them with improved healing chemicals… or not-so-healing chemicals, should you have an Antagonistic grudge.
Nobody respects Nurses, not even the Doctors at times. Your job will often be thankless, hectic, and work long hours without many breaks. You're the one who will be expected to muscle invaders out of your domain, restrain psychotic patients, and probably deal with more than your fair share of flirting. Fortunately you usually have sufficient supplies to deal with most intruders, and a quick call to Security can deal with the more troublesome patients if necessary.
Just as a nurse can be a powerful force for good, they can also be deadly under the right circumstances. See someone you need dead in Medbay? You have most of the tools to do so. Need to make sure a dead body won't come back? You can hide victims by putting little notes by morgue trays saying “This man has been borged” or “This man has been cloned” and no one will bat an eye at why they are naked, and why they are there (and often the chaplain will cremate them, or the chef will take some meat, once the Morgue has run out of space).