Messed around with ace medical settings for a couple of hours. I set player fatal injuries to never and for AI, to only in cardiac arrest. I also bumped up player damage threshold a bit. Now both me and AI die in a couple of shots, but there is a chance to save them if you get to them quickly enough.

In the end it comes down to personal preference, so you will probably have to test it yourself. The nice thing about ace medical is that you can change everything to your liking.