Back to IV.1: The Match

Act IV, Scene 1

The Match

Solution: DOESN'T MATTER

Solves: 28 Guesses: 112

This is the meta-puzzle, which incorporates elements from all previous puzzles!

We immediately see that the cover letter references the mechanisms of all six Acts I-III puzzles within the text. Therefore we use those same mechanisms to solve the mini puzzles:

  1. The red rectangle refers to III.1: Sydenham’s Chorossword, where we identified all ST bigrams within red rectangles and interpreted them as Braille dots. Here, if we do the same we see the ST bigrams spell "SORT."
    Crossword
  2. The next clue are the four "values", which refer to II.1: Cher Aids. The four rare diseases in question are:
    • Caroli Disease (CAROL-LEE)
    • Lawrence-Moon Syndrome (LAW-RENTS-MOON)
    • Ivemark Syndrome (EYE-FUR-MARK)
    • Nocardiosis (NO-CARDIO-SIS)
    the first letters of which spell "CLIN"
  3. Next is a reference to I.1: 131 126 with its numbers, specifically for Ca-N-Na-Bi-S, with the byline book-code spelling out "SCHOOLS".
  4. Next refers to III.2: Cowboy Medicine where pairing up the remedies and maladies mean:
    • SATINWOOD and DYSENTERY
    • SUNFLOWER and PNEUMONIA
    • RED OAK and RABIES
    • TURNIP and TYPHUS
    • LICHEN and TYPHUS
    spelling "NORTH"
  5. Next refers to I.2: Method-Based Studying and its MBS codes. We re-use the samarium lexidronam item code 16018, but add 3997 from patient fee, giving 20015 or "TO".
  6. Lastly we have III.1: Sydenham’s Chorossword and its monarchs with their pretty unique deaths:
    • CHARLES VII of France
    • GEORGE III of Great Britain
    • SULEIMAN II of the Ottoman Empire
    • CLEOPATRA VII of Egypt
    • HENRY I of England
    Indexing the regnal numbers into regnal names give "SOUTH".

The full cluephrase is ORDER CLIN SCHOOLS NORTH TO SOUTH. But what clinical schools?

A bit more retrospection reveals that each of the six previous puzzles are themed around one of the metro clinical school hospitals! We sort them by order of Nouth-South geographically, and use the Step #2 Preference numbers as extraction.


Preference Clin school / hospital Associated puzzle Reason Puzzle solution Extraction numbers Extracted letter
1 Northern Health II.1: Cher Aids Puzzle cluephrase refers to the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) DISORDERS 1, 4 D, O
2 Austin Health I.1: 131 126 Puzzle references the Austin Clinical Toxicology Guidelines and the Vic Poisons Info Centre based out of Austin Health AUSTIN POWERS 10, 3 E, S
3 Western Health III.2: Cowboy Medicine Wild West themed TINCTURES 3, 1 N, T
4 Royal Melbourne Hospital II.2: Coronary Syndromes Puzzle references monarchs and haemophilia, the "Royal Disease" HAEMOPHILIA 4, 2 M, A
5 St Vincent's Health III.1: Sydenham’s Chorossword Saints and Catholicism ST JOHN'S WORT 2, 11 T, T
6 Epworth Healthcare I.2: Method-Based Studying Puzzle solution references Epworth being a private hospital. PRIVATEERS 7, 2 E, R

The extracted letters tell you that it DOESN'T MATTER where you go for your internship.



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Guess log

Guess Frequency
DOESNTMATTER 28
ANSWER 6
AUSTIN 6
NORTHERN 6
MONASH 3
NORTHERNHEALTH 3
RMH 3
ALFRED 2
APPLICATIONS 2
EPWORTH 2
MARYBOROUGH 2
ROYALMELBOURNE 2
STVINCENTS 2
ALBURYWODONGA 1
ALBURYWODONGAHEALTH 1
ALFREDHEALTH 1
ALLENPLSDONTMAKEFUNOFME 1
ALLOCATION 1
AUSTINHEALTH 1
AWESNR 1
AWESOME 1
BOWTLE 1
BOXHILL 1
CHICKEN 1
CLINICALTRIALS 1
DOESNT 1
EUROPE 1
GOULBURNVALLEYHEALTH 1
GRAMPIANSHEALTH 1
INTERNSHIPS 1
ITDOESNTMATTER 1
ITSREALLYTIMETOFINALLYINTERN 1
LATEST 1
LETEST 1
LODDONMALLEEHEALTH 1
MELBOURNEHEALTH 1
METROPOLITAN 1
MIRROR 1
MONASHHEALTH 1
NORTHEASTHEALTH 1
NORTHEASTHEALTHWANGARATTA 1
NTLSSWAOTHEH 1
PAPUANEWGUINEA 1
PARTICIPATION 1
PMCV 1
PORTMORESBY 1
PRINCESTONPLAINSBOROUGH 1
RENEWS 1
RESIDENCY 1
RESIDENT 1
SEWNAR 1
SHEPPARTON 1
SNEAKING 1
STVINCENT 1
STVINCENTSHEALTH 1
THUNDERBOLT 1
WANERS 1
WESTERNHEALTH 1

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Disclaimer: any resemblance to real postgraduate medical organisations is purely coincidental.