The medical side of things

What's been up medically?

Well let’s see (in no particular order):
• I’ve had a guy with a double dislocation of the small finger following an altercation- x-rayed and reset.
• I stitched up a guy’s hand after he lacerated the back side of it. I hate my needle holders, strongly preferring the Olsen Hagars style and could use an actual set of tissue forceps. Anybody want to send me a pair? J/K they’re expensive and what I have works.
• Two more splinters, one really pretty large. I need a splinter forceps too; I’m using a dressing forceps as that’s all I have. I can tell my vision is not what it used to be and I couldn’t find where I had placed my magnifying glass.
• I had a fellow with hemorrhoids.
• Yet another abscess, this one on the face- probably shaving related. The man had been picking at it for a while so it looked worse than it was.
• One little fellow had the nastiest ear I’ve seen so far; he came in complaining of sinus congestion/drainage problems and a sore throat. I tried earwax removal solution for two days without results and then took to flushing it. After another two days I finally got most of the debris out. He looked at it and made a joke about his brains falling out (at least that’s what the translator said when they both started laughing). I started him on some antibiotic drops and got the rest of the debris out the next day. A few days later and he was good as new.
• I’ve got almost everybody on camp up to date on their hepatitis vaccinations
• We had a run on sinus infections- lots of decongestants and Zithromax handed out. Yes I know that the Drugs for Bugs recommends amoxicillin as the first drug of choice with azithromycin being recommended for those with Beta-lactam allergy, but is seems to work very well on whatever bug it is that we have here that keeps causing problems.
• Folks seem to be doing much better about taking care of their feet lately. I started trying to educated folks on athlete’s foot when they first come in so maybe I’m seeing some results with that.
• I repacked my medical bag in the truck. To begin with I took out everything that wasn’t needed for a trauma bag and dropped back to one 500cc bag of fluids. I took the bag of fluids and taped a drip set and a small IV start kit to it. I had all of the IV stuff in one pouch, but this is faster and easier I think- just pick up the bag and everything should be there to start a line. I reorganized other stuff using Ziploc bags and a couple of Otterboxes. For those who have been looking for a convenient and safe way to transport breakable items (such as syrettes, vials and ampules) I can recommend these. They are economically prices and available with clear covers if you want to see the contents. I’ve got drugs in one of them and Chemsticks in the other (the fluorescent chemical light sticks that you bend to activate). I clipped a flashlight on to the outside and added a role of cloth tape to the shoulder strap. For those of you wondering, there is a SKED pack in the truck with a lot more gear in it. I wish I had a roof rack with a storage box that I could keep a certain amount of extras in but I don’t. The reasoning behind this is that, in the event of an emergency where we had to leave the base, I will most likely have to put the third seat back in the Excursion to carry people and will thus lose some of the supplies I normally have in there.
• I’ve been instructing the “Heat Related Injuries” class. It’s pretty late in the season for this, but I didn’t make up the schedule. Sorry, but if you’re not smart enough to know that it’s really hot and you need to be drinking lots of water then you don’t need to be over here and you certainly shouldn’t be allowed to pass your genes on.

That’s about it for the medical side of things.