Recent­ly I have been giv­ing some thought to First Aid and Med­i­cine in the wake of the three very bad earth­quakes our plan­et has recent­ly seen in the past 14 or 15 months.  I have been think­ing about my first aid kit, is it ade­quate, what I know and do not know about first aid, trau­ma, field med­i­cine, etc.  Watch­ing the suf­fer­ing of those who were injured in the clips both online and on tele­vi­sion, I real­ize what I know is his­tor­i­cal­ly from what I learned in scouts and as a kid in school and can prob­a­bly fill a thim­ble.  Hon­est­ly, I know more about mak­ing fires that I know about clos­ing a gap­ping wound in the field.  And, when you put them side by side, one seems as equal­ly impor­tant as the oth­er.  What good is know­ing how to make fire 12 dif­fer­ent ways if you are bleed­ing to death?  Inter­est­ing thought to myself this morn­ing.

This has prompt­ed me to start look­ing at some new text, but more impor­tant­ly to start inves­ti­gat­ing First Aid and advanced First Aid class­es here in NJ.  Not just that, it has prompt­ed me to take a clos­er look at what first aid sup­plies I do have and if I had to admin­is­ter first aid or advanced first aid on some­one, what would I do if I did not have the sup­plies in tow?  If I need­ed to, I am not sure I could admin­is­ter an IV bag to rehy­drate some­one?  To that end, i am not sure when I would even need one.  Bet­ter yet, where the heck can you buy them, or get train­ing on the “how to” with­out doing some­thing like going to para­medic school or some­thing like that?

Have any of you tak­en advanced cours­es in med­i­cine and advanced first aid?  That is not real­ly a rhetor­i­cal ques­tion, I am real­ly very curi­ous.  Have you thought about it or is the Adven­ture Med­ical first aid kit you pur­chased suf­fice in your mind?   Please com­ment and let me know your thoughts.

With that, I “think” it might be smart to put togeth­er a “Med­ical Base Kit” that can be trans­port­ed if there was a need to Bug Out.  Some­thing not too exten­sive, but could be put into a plas­tic stor­age con­tain­er like you find at Tar­get, Wal­mart, Kmart etc. with a snap on lid (http://goo.gl/6BVXJ).  Eas­i­ly trans­port­ed, sealed with duct tape, and can be thrown right in the truck if nec­es­sary.  But more impor­tant­ly, the skill set to use those items is clear­ly more impor­tant.

In addi­tion, Den­tistry is a con­cern but that is slight­ly back burn­er for the moment.