McGraw-Hill recently published a new book by UA College of Medicine Professor-Emeritus Kenneth Iserson, MD, MBA, FACEP, FAAEM. IMPROVISED MEDICINE: Providing Care in Extreme Environments is directed to health-care professionals who practice in the midst of disasters or other resource-poor settings. It provides how-to treatment solutions in the absence of such traditional tools as medications, equipment and staff, as well as when care is required outside of the provider's specialty.
Topics cover a variety of situational requirements, including evacuating patients from high-rise hospitals; making medical equipment, such as endotracheal tubes, plaster bandages and stethoscopes; fashioning surgical equipment from common items; taking and viewing stereoscopic X-rays with standard equipment; quickly and easily stopping post-partum hemorrhage; and cleaning, disinfecting and sterilizing equipment for re-use, among many other subjects.
IMPROVISED MEDICINE currently is available at a short-term discount from the publisher.
Dr. Iserson spent nearly 30 years as a teacher, clinician and bioethicist at the UA College of Medicine in Tucson before retiring in 2008. He is an expert in global and disaster medicine, having practiced or taught on all seven continents, including six months as lead physician for the U.S. Antarctic Program and work with NGOs in rural areas of Central and South America, Zambia, Bhutan, Ghana and South Sudan. He is a prolific writer, having authored numerous books and more than 150 scientific articles. In addition to professor-emeritus of emergency medicine at the UA, he is medical director (emeritus) of the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, a supervisory physician with Arizona's Disaster Medical Assistance Team and a member of the American Red Cross disaster response team.
