What Should A Medical Bag Have In It

what should a medical bag have in it ? i am not talking about a first aid kit as this will be the only aid available.
this is what i think and please add to the list as you see fitt.
1) a very good medical book for laymen from birthing a child to setting bones .
2) bandages,gauze,pads, tapes, all sorts of things to bind up cuts ect.
3) Steristrips are sterile pieces of medical tape used to close wounds,
4) all sort of disinfectants, polysporin , iodin , hydrogen peroxide .
now to you to add

 

If the idea is to cover as many needs as possible ( like a household stockpile) and not a portable emergency kit. Then I'd say a supply of painkillers ( individually wrapped tablets would probably be better) and even a few syringes, a thermometer, a sterilizing kit for your equipment ( unless you plan to use disposable only) I'd also recommend masks as well as the standard gloves.
You can consider cold packs and thermal packs as well. Also a CPR guard would be a good idea.
I try to add items that can have more then one purpose ( like triangle bandages that can be used to make a sling for an arm or be a dressing to a wound.)

 

I feel it's most important to get the training as well as the equipment. I'm lucky enough to have 3 general practitioners in my immediate circle of friends.
I know my limitations, I'll stick to basic first aid and very simple equipment.

 

That's a valid point

 

Local anesthetic
stuff to clean wounds and extract stuff that needs extracting
Local anesthetic
Sutures etc for sewing stuff up, clamps for clamping stuff, tweezers big and small etc
Local anesthetic

Enough guts to just get in there and do whatever needs doing in a timely manner
No time to read a damn book!
Read that book NOW and again and again!

 

Ah, the old medical maxim of "if you don't know what wrong just open 'em up and have a good old poke about" followed by "it wasn't anything that I did, she would have died anyway"
Great idea, having the guts to jump right in and have a go might be appropriate if you're fixing the family car but not for surgery or dispensing drugs, you're likely to do more harm than good

 

https://gritborn.com/cat-gen-7-tourniquet/
Gotta have a C.A.T. generation 3 or above tourniquet.

Gotta have a large bore 14 ga (16 OK-ish) catheter for tension pneumothorax. This is god-awful important, boys and girls! Injury to chest wall can cause the lung to de-laminate from the chest wall. Think, worst case of pleurisy imaginable. That air space between ribs and lung will keep filling with air as the person breaths. Think hole in lung that is one way -- wrong way -- into the de-lamination space. The bad lung space will push the pericardial region on into the other good lung's space. As the heart is pushed, it rotates and twists the pulmonary and aortic arteries shut = poof! he's dead. Dart the catheter into the chest wall in the area of the upper ribs above the areola (nipple) and a bit lateral (look it up, some site will have pictures, like a soldier training site, W68). Pull the needle out of the catheter and leave the cath in to drain any air pressure -- you'll even hear it hiss.
http://epmonthly.com/article/needle-decompression-for-tension-pneumothorax/

 

I was referring to obvious injuries like cuts and stuff not opening stuff up but cleaning and closing, a core skill.
The family car feels no pain and wont die on you, but hay its fine just sit down with that book and start reading, the patient can wait no matter that that appendix can burst and kill the patient while your reading!

Diagnosis is important but so is timely action
Cuts from blades are usually easy to clean and close, bullet wounds usually need to be cleaned and packed then clean and packed a few times before closing as some tissue will look viable but not be and that stuff then go's rotten, not something you want sewn into you! so you pack and check it the next day and again until all the crap is out. then you sew it up!

 

My wife had that happen earlier this year. In the end they had to open her up and scrape the crud out of the plural lining because it was too thick to draw out with a needle. She was in ICU for five days afterwards.

Without access to hospitals and modern medicines the old killers like pneumonia, dysentery, gangrene and simple septicemia that kills via blood poisoning. The big thing that you need is the tools and knowledge to clean, close and care for cuts and wounds. Have some antibiotics and don't take any injury no matter how small for granted. Men used to die from nicks and small cuts they got while shaving. A lot of things will just be beyond the ability of a lay person without drugs to deal with. About the as far as a regular person might be able to go would be an appendix if you have the books to study and the tools on hand. Most gunshot wounds are going to kill you. Learning how to live with these sort of things is going to be the hardest part of surviving. Watching people die of things that you know were simple fixes before the fall is going to be hard to accept.

 

In theory I know how to do a tracheotomy or diagnose and take out an enflamed appendix,..in theory I also know how to fly a plane or a helicopter, probably for no more than a few minutes before crashing in a ball of fire....none of these are skills to try and practice without the correct tuition, as the probability and potential costs of screwing up are far too high.
There are many situations where book learning will not suffice.

 

I have dental tooth pulling pliers . Left over pain killers from dental office visits ,peroxide and may have some antibiotic pills . I sometimes stock fish amoxcillan or fish penicillin . The fish antibotics work but don't seem to work as well as the prescription antibotics . On want to get list is surgical glue . Glue would be better than a hot iron .

 

A VERY wide range of medications. Pain killers and antibiotics are the two obvious ones. But there are a lot more that I'd keep on hand. Everything from anticonvulsants to antidepressants. You never know when you have to treat a seizure, severe anxiety attack, severe diarrhea, or any number of other things that seem small right now. A lot of things can be treated naturally with kratom and cannibas, of course. But those aren't going to work for everyone or everything.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2706344/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...e-grisly-photos-wounded-soldiers-treated.html

https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Milit...=1544152774&sr=1-3&keywords=civil+war+surgery

https://www.amazon.com/Empty-Sleeve...=1544152885&sr=1-4&keywords=civil+war+surgery

 

Tampons, honey, irrigation pump to clean out wounds, povidone-iodine, large (and all sizes) sterile wound packing gauge and bandages, tape, gloves, tea tree oil, fever medicine, pain medication, antibiotics, suture set, staple gun, casting materials for broken bones, anti-diarrhea pills, air inhaler, breathing machine with albuterol, epi-pen, benadryl, oraljel, earache drops, eye drops, sinus pills, mucinex, drawing salve, nasal spray, vicks vapor rub, masks, peroxide, sore muscle rub, bottle of whiskey, pair of long tweezers, thermometer, ace bandages, Bible

 

I think unless you plan to heal the world and are trained in advanced medicine ( people that don't know how to set bone can do more harm then good) I would focus on what you need ( if you need an epi-pen bring that but don't be packing medicine you don't have a condition for other wise it's extra wieght and a reason to be targeted if someone finds out you have it)
Sounds scinical but your first priority is you and yours other people after if you can without endangerment

 

I will be the first to admit that my IFAK is not as complete as it should be, and the assistance I could render would be minimal. That being said one of the reasons to carry a more complete kit, even if you don't know how to use some items is that you may have it available for someone who does know how to use it. I have read about doctors who happened upon an accident scene, and were able to give proper medical attention, because someone already at the scene had what was needed. Learning more about First Aid is high on my prepping priority list.

 

While I can understand your point of view to me it seems that's more suited for a before shtf situation. I suppose if you have a bug in plan then it would work as well but for those who plan is based on mobility it would be best to keep it simple

 

Same thinking here, not so much for our home and vehicle FAKs that are mostly boo boo kits with some major bleeding/compromised airway extras added, but in storage in the event of a shtf/teotwawki situation where there's medical care available but they lack supplies. That seems to be a common theme in many disasters, hospitals and clinics are still available but they quickly exhaust their medicines and supplies to treat patients effectively. Present day Venezuela being an example, hospitals there have given patient's family members a list of items or supplies they require to treat the person but don't have, and the patient or his family have to try to acquire them (often on the black market) and bring them to the hospital.

You could go broke trying to prepare for every possible need and still be missing items/supplies a doctor might require to treat you (or a nurse to properly care for you), but there is some commonly used stuff that is inexpensive and easy to acquire now. Catheters, drains/tubing, IV administration supplies, syringes/needles, scalpels, and sutures being some of the supplies we have stored. There's some kits with items like this for turd-world travelers that don't want to trust that a local clinic will have them available (and sterile), but it's cheaper to watch for sales at medical supply companies and buy them individually. Another benefit of this if you don't work in healthcare is the knowledge gained in researching what to get, why it's needed, and the basics of how it's used - or at least it has been very educational for me. I've started acquiring the less 'glamorous' stuff recently as a result, urinary supplies being my most recent focus although I haven't acquired much in that area yet. Medical supplies could be very valuable for barter too obviously.