Improvised Medicine

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 internationally or in 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:§Quickly and easily stop postpartum hemorrhage§Perform digital-oral and blind-nasotracheal intubations§Assess vital signs with limited equipment§Make an endotracheal tube in seconds and quickly improvise a saline lock§Identify dental problems, and do simple dental blocks and procedures§Make plaster bandages for splints/casts§Use substitutes for standard ultrasound gel§Make ECG electrode and defibrillator pads§Rehydrate or transfuse children with subcutaneous and intraperitoneal infusions§Warm blood units in seconds inexpensively§Make an ophthalmoscope without lenses§Take and view stereoscopic (3-D) radiographs using normal equipment§Improvise an infant proctoscope