Category: First Aid/Medical

I spent a number of years doing trauma surgery in several Level 1 NYC hospitals, and I’d like to share some thoughts. I don’t usually like to give advice – it’s not my custom to tell another man or woman what to do. So please take this for what it’s worth – my experience and thoughts – and do with it whatever seems best to you. DISCLAIMER: I am a licensed physician. However, this is not medical advice. For any Johnny-Rambo’s out there, if you need medical assistance, please pick up the phone. This is for when there is no …

Many Americans have never experienced the death of someone close to them, and our current system of dealing with death makes sure that family and loved ones have as little contact as possible with the dead, and often very little with the dying.  Our culture reacts to the topic of death much like the Victorians reacted to the topic of sex.  We avoid even using the word “died” or “dead”, preferring euphemisms such as “passed”.   With the more widely spread use of hospice and palliative care teams, families are learning that helping their loved ones through the dying process can …

In the introduction to this series of article I gave a brief outline of the medical skills that a layman should acquire when preparing for TEOTWAWKI.  One of the most needed skills is suturing and other forms of wound closure.  Lacerations are frightening, especially to young children.  One’s sense of wholeness is violated, often out of proportion to the actual injury.  Even adults view minor cuts as emergencies, when the truth is, most would heal (though perhaps with more scarring) with little intervention beyond cleansing and bandaging.  Pain and fear may cause as much discomfort as the actual wound. The …

Sir: A few  years ago I found I had cataracts in both eyes.  Not too bad — I could still see to drive and shoot — but enough that open sights became more difficult and oncoming headlights a bit of a problem at night.  Slowly they got worse, until I was 20/80 in my left eye and not much better on the right (shooting!) side.  Like many folks I am reluctant to get treatment until it’s absolutely necessary.  I put it off, in part because getting the new flexible lenses cost $2,500 more per eye than insurance would pay.  Finally I realized that …

The two procedures that make up Field Dentistry are fillings and extractions. Field Dentistry is defined as providing your own dental care when there is no other way; probably due to collapse of our health care system along with the rest of our fragile economy and civilization due to the disastrous economic policies of our “leaders”, a terrorist attack, or some other reason. Fillings can be easy or complicated depending on the size of the cavity and the surfaces of the tooth that are involved.  Starting with the simplest- a one surface cavity in the chewing surface of the tooth, …

JWR, In his recent SurvivalBlog article, Don H. incorrectly stated that alcohol will not kill MRSA or Staph.  I want to set the record straight on this, as working with bacteria is my career.  Any bacteria that does not form spores will be contact-killed by a 70% Isopropanol (or other alcohol) treatment.  This includes MRSA (and other staph bacteria, as MRSA is Methycillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).  The only commonly encountered bacteria that will certainly not be killed with alcohol are Clostridium species (the source of botulism [C. botulinum] and gas gangrene [C. perfringens] and Mycobacterium species [M. tuberculosis].  C. difficile is another …

Sir, I’ve found another possible non-power-using answer to CPAP. Check out this oral device to simulate the chin-lift method of opening the airway used during CPR. I have no affiliation with the above web site and I currently use CPAP. I just thought the above web site looked like an okay starting point for information and research into the subject.

If society collapses and you’re on your own, what medical skills seem the most essential?  The answer likely depends on your age, health status, and stage in life.  For those of child-bearing years, midwifery skills may be paramount.  For those advanced in age, diagnosis and treatment of chronic disease becomes primary.  For the otherwise young and healthy, treatment of injuries and infection tops the list. Our current compartmentalized society has deemed that doctors should perform these tasks, though turf wars abound over what nurses, physician assistants, pharmacist, paramedics, and others should legally be permitted to do.  Recent decades have also …