Improvised Medicine Providing Care In Extreme Environments

Deliver quality healthcare in the most challenging field conditions Full of practical clinical pearls and proven strategies, this indispensible guide shows you how to operate outside your comfort zone and devise effective treatment solutions when the traditional tools (medications, equipment, and staff) are unavailable—or when you need to provide care outside of your specialty. Improvised Medicine is a must for anyone who plans to work in global, disaster, or other resource-poor settings. FEATURES: Simple-to-follow directions, diagrams, and illustrations describe practical techniques and the improvised equipment necessary to provide quality care during crises. Contains improvisations in anesthesia and airway management, dentistry, gynecology/obstetrics, infectious disease/laboratory diagnosis, internal medicine, otolaryngology, pediatrics and malnutrition, orthopedics, psychiatry, and surgery. Also includes basic disaster communication techniques, post-disaster forensics, a model hospital disaster plan, and innovative patient-transport methods. LEARN HOW TO: Make an endotracheal tube in seconds Perform digital-oral and blind-nasotracheal intubations Make plaster bandages for splints/casts Give open-drop ether, ketamine drips, and halothane Use subcutaneous/intraperitoneal rehydration/transfusion Make ORS and standard nutrition formulas Clean, disinfect, and sterilize equipment for reuse Warm blood units in seconds inexpensively Take/view stereoscopic x-rays with standard equipment Quickly and easily stop postpartum hemorrhage Fashion surgical equipment from common items Evacuate patients easily for high-rise hospitals Make esophageal and precordial stethoscopes Quickly improvise a saline lock Make ECG electrode/defibrillator pads and ultrasound gel

Deliver quality healthcare in the most challenging field conditions Comprehensive yet compact, practical, and enduring, Improvised Medicine: Providing Care in Extreme Environments, Second Edition, is the one book to toss into your bag when going to practice medicine in global, disaster, or other resource-poor settings, including theaters of war, regions of civil unrest, and economically deprived areas. Full of practical clinical pearls and field-tested strategies, this indispensable guide provides detailed instructions on how to work successfully outside of your comfort zone. It demonstrates how to devise effective treatment solutions when the traditional tools (medications, equipment, and staff) are unavailable or when providing care outside your primary area of expertise. In any crisis, from power failures and computer crashes to floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes, knowing how to deal with the unique challenges encountered saves lives and communities. This reference gives you that knowledge and inspires innovative crisis resolution. FROM REVIEWS OF THE FIRST EDITION: "Dr Iserson has given us a most remarkable book. Many readers may be familiar with David Werner's lay healthworker book, Where There Is No Doctor; this new volume could be titled Where There Is a Doctor–But No Stuff. Drawing from his experience providing care in international, wilderness, and disaster settings, he has compiled an impressive collection of bare-bones equipment and work-around strategies to provide the best possible care in resource-poor settings. While presenting many creative examples, the purpose of the book is not to offer an exhaustive list of solutions to missing resource challenges but to inspire creativity in readers who may find themselves needing to improvise." -- Family Medicine “There is a lot of material here and, if nothing else, it may motivate more people to practice low-tech medicine and be willing to go where health care is dependent more on caring than on cost. I recommend this book to anyone who must practice in austere environments, and it will be in my rucksack when I respond to the next disaster.” – The Journal of Emergency Medicine FEATURES: ·Simple-to-follow directions, diagrams, and illustrations describing practical techniques and improvised equipment necessary to provide quality care during crises ·Contains improvisations in anesthesia and airway management, dentistry, gynecology/obstetrics, infectious disease/laboratory diagnosis, internal medicine, otolaryngology, pediatrics and malnutrition, orthopedics, psychiatry, and surgery ·Covers situational analysis and basic needs in a crisis; specific triage, diagnosis, and stabilization efforts; medical interventions for surgical and non-surgical problems; and debunks some commonly reported improvised techniques ·Features public health measures, basic disaster communication techniques, post-disaster forensics, a model hospital disaster plan, and innovative patient-transport methods ·New to the second edition: More concisely written, more extensively illustrated, and updated improvisations and references LEARN HOW TO: ·Make an endotracheal tube in seconds ·Perform digital-oral and blind-nasotracheal intubations ·Make plaster bandages for splints/casts ·Give open-drop ether, ketamine drips, and halothane ·Use subcutaneous/intraperitoneal rehydration/transfusion ·Make ORS and standard nutrition formulas ·Clean, disinfect, and sterilize equipment for reuse ·Warm blood units in seconds inexpensively ·Take/view stereoscopic x-rays with standard equipment ·Quickly and easily stop postpartum hemorrhage ·Fashion surgical equipment from common items ·Build an evaporative refrigerator ·Make esophageal and precordial stethoscopes ·Quickly improvise a saline lock ·Make ECG electrode/defibrillator pads and ultrasound gel ·Evacuate patients easily from high-rise hospitals

Anesthesiologist, intensive care expert, and NASA adviser Kevin Fong explores how physical extremes push human limits and spawn incredible medical breakthroughs Little more than one hundred years ago, maps of the world still boasted white space: places where no human had ever trod. Within a few short decades the most hostile of the world’s environments had all been conquered. Likewise, in the twentieth century, medicine transformed human life. Doctors took what was routinely fatal and made it survivable. As modernity brought us ever more into different kinds of extremis, doctors pushed the bounds of medical advances and human endurance. Extreme exploration challenged the body in ways that only the vanguard of science could answer. Doctors, scientists, and explorers all share a defining trait: they push on in the face of grim odds. Because of their extreme exploration we not only understand our physiology better; we have also made enormous strides in the science of healing. Drawing on his own experience as an anesthesiologist, intensive care expert, and NASA adviser, Dr. Kevin Fong examines how cuttingedge medicine pushes the envelope of human survival by studying the human body’s response when tested by physical extremes. Extreme Medicine explores different limits of endurance and the lens each offers on one of the systems of the body. The challenges of Arctic exploration created opportunities for breakthroughs in open heart surgery; battlefield doctors pioneered techniques for skin grafts, heart surgery, and trauma care; underwater and outer space exploration have revolutionized our understanding of breathing, gravity, and much more. Avant-garde medicine is fundamentally changing our ideas about the nature of life and death. Through astonishing accounts of extraordinary events and pioneering medicine, Fong illustrates the sheer audacity of medical practice at extreme limits, where human life is balanced on a knife’s edge. Extreme Medicine is a gripping debut about the science of healing, but also about exploration in its broadest sense—and about how, by probing the very limits of our biology, we may ultimately return with a better appreciation of how our bodies work, of what life is, and what it means to be human.

"With an increase in visits to remote and dangerous locations around the world, the number of serious and fatal injuries and illnesses associated with these expeditions has markedly increased. Thus, so has the need for medical personnel trained specifically to handle the health risks that are faced when far removed from professional care resources." "Expedition and Wilderness Medicine covers everything a prospective field physician or medical consultant needs to prepare for when beginning an expedition. Divided into three parts "Expedition Planning," "Expeditions in Unique Environments," and "Illness and Injuries on Expeditions," - this unique book covers everything that the expedition physician needs to know."--BOOK JACKET.

This comprehensive "must-have" for every pre-med student details every step from high school through MCATs, interviews, and acceptance into medical school.

Packed with step-by-step instructions, how-to explanations, and practical approaches to outdoor and wilderness emergencies, this newly updated guide explains the best ways to respond to just about any medical problem when help is miles or days away. Logically organized, "Medicine for the Outdoors" may literally save a life.

This publication shows designated first-aid providers how to diagnose, treat, and prevent the health problems of seafarers on board ship. This edition contains fully updated recommendations aimed to promote and protect the health of seafarers, and is consistent with the latest revisions of both the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines and the International Health Regulations.--Publisher's description.