The Book

[Sushirolls]

Pick a scenario. Zombie apocalypse. AI runamok / terminator movie comes to real life. Whatever pseudo dooms day scenario you can imagine.

What is The Book that a Psychiatrist like myself, or IM or FM, or Rad Onc; whatever, would want on their shelf, in the very back, completely covered in dust, to reach for when people say, "You are a doctor. Do the doctor stuff and operate."

And truly, because it is a near apocalypse, society collapsed and I or whatever non-surgical doc is faced with this scenario is cursing, saying "Scat! I'm it."

Is there a go to book?

Or even a more refined book that says here's trauma 101. Here's apocalypse conditions you might be able to pull off and here's all the stuff that honestly, don't even bother trying?

I'd like to add something to my library but have no desire to cruise through the end of the world / prepper forums to see what they've come up with.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[ThoracicGuy]

 

[dpmd]

Maybe Washington manual? I remember using it in med school and internship because I am ancient and trained before smart phones.

 

[dpmd]

And for situations where you must pretend to know a variety of medical things but your smartphone still has power I use medscape because you can download the reference portion and use it where there is no internet (so I use it when volunteering overseas). That includes how to perform a bunch of surgeries too. Not sure if it would be enough for a nonsurgeon to try to wing it but maybe if you team up with a veterinarian...

 

[Sushirolls]

Sceneario is world without internet.
Veternarians are living like royalty by themselves on their farms high in the mountain meadows.

You are it. What's The Book you go to?

 

[HighPriest]

As most military docs or docs who do a lot of mission work will tell you, if society completely collapses 90% of what we do becomes a moot point anyway. No antibiotics? No anesthetic? No monitoring? You’re mostly back to who’s fastest at hacking off limbs and hoping gangrene doesn’t finish the job. No infrastructure really upends the risk/benefit scale. You might as well ready a comic book for a lot of what we do in a hospital today.

 

[TypeADissection]

There isn't a book. If you've never operated in any significant capacity, a book isn't going to be the magic bullet to help in any situation. Might as well grab a good wilderness EM book on how to deal with poisoning, basic splinting and always bring a Gigli saw. Anybody can figure out how to use a Gigli. But if a SHTF scenario was to arise, you will either live long enough to become a warlord or become a really nice loot drop. Cheers.

 

[LucidSplash]

There isn't a book. If you've never operated in any significant capacity, a book isn't going to be the magic bullet to help in any situation. Might as well grab a good wilderness EM book on how to deal with poisoning, basic splinting and always bring a Gigli saw. Anybody can figure out how to use a Gigli. But if a SHTF scenario was to arise, you will either live long enough to become a warlord or become a really nice loot drop. Cheers.

I’m really fast at guillotine amps though. Love me some gigli saw. Will barter services for like, food and stuff.

 

[TypeADissection]

I’m really fast at guillotine amps though. Love me some gigli saw. Will barter services for like, food and stuff.

Basically Ron Swanson's favorite store in Pawnee: Food and Stuff.

 

[dienekes88]

Interesting question.

Agree with everyone else insomuch that in the zombie apocalypse, I doubt anyone is committing the resources to doing an acute type A aortic dissection, and moreover I'm not sure it makes sense for a psychiatrist to do it.

Seeing that this scenario is so far fetched... I think Cope's Early Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen is a nice read.

Separately, I thought there might be a "Worst Case Scenario Handbook" written about this, but I couldn't find one that addresses this on Amazon. Maybe you should write the authors an email...

 

[C Smith]

If you want some survival or end of the world type of books to add to your bookshelf. For a real guide I do not know of any.

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks
How To Survive A Horror Movie by Seth Gramame-Smith
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

 

[Lem0nz]

Yea this question sounds more fun than it really is. The only even remotely useful abdominal operation you could probably pull off would be an appendectomy and if you're lucky a c-section without murdering a mother and the baby both. The mom will probably die from blood loss or infection though. Kind of a ****ty subject if you actually get into it.

Serious cholecystitis you would just poke a hole in it and make a skin-fistula. Eventually they'd get super screwed up electrolytes and die that way or something else weird.

Diverticulitis - nope. Cancer? Nope (and you can't give chemo sooooo). Anything vascular is utterly laughable. The chest you can put chest tubes in, sure, and that's the end of that discussion.

Amputations would be technically do-able but in the apocalypse how TF are you going to haul around someone with a missing limb? They will bring your group down and inevitably get someone else maimed or killed.

The only surgical skill of any value in the apocalypse would probably be good wound care and an effective I&D.

A better question might be what book would you want if you were trying to rebuild society, but presumably in that scenario you've restored electricity and you have anesthesia and if you manage to do those things then your first priority was turning the music back on which is step 1 of every operation so you've also gotten the internet back for pandora. Just go to youtube at that point.

 

[LucidSplash]

Yea this question sounds more fun than it really is. The only even remotely useful abdominal operation you could probably pull off would be an appendectomy and if you're lucky a c-section without murdering a mother and the baby both. The mom will probably die from blood loss or infection though. Kind of a ****ty subject if you actually get into it.

Serious cholecystitis you would just poke a hole in it and make a skin-fistula. Eventually they'd get super screwed up electrolytes and die that way or something else weird.

Diverticulitis - nope. Cancer? Nope (and you can't give chemo sooooo). Anything vascular is utterly laughable. The chest you can put chest tubes in, sure, and that's the end of that discussion.

Amputations would be technically do-able but in the apocalypse how TF are you going to haul around someone with a missing limb? They will bring your group down and inevitably get someone else maimed or killed.

The only surgical skill of any value in the apocalypse would probably be good wound care and an effective I&D.

A better question might be what book would you want if you were trying to rebuild society, but presumably in that scenario you've restored electricity and you have anesthesia and if you manage to do those things then your first priority was turning the music back on which is step 1 of every operation so you've also gotten the internet back for pandora. Just go to youtube at that point.

Well without streaming or the internet we could go back to making anesthesia change the CDs in the CD player. Old school.

 

[HighPriest]

The man who cut out his own appendix - BBC News

 

[HighPriest]

Next time someone says they have a high pain tolerance…