What medical specialty would be most useful in and after a nuclear war/WW3?

[john7991]

I know this is a serious place where people ask serious questions, and I’m actually seriously asking this, but I was wondering which medical specialty would be most in demand/useful if a nuclear war occurred and left society in shambles.

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[YoungMoneyMint]

definitely not rad-onc

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

General surgery?

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

I was wondering which medical specialty would be most in demand/useful if a nuclear war occurred and left society in shambles.

Military medic/corpsman, because they are used to patching people up with whatever they can find in their pockets. Physicians and surgeons will not have access to meds and equipment in your scenario, so all of their fancy training will be mostly worthless.

Big Hoss

 

[wholeheartedly]

Pathology.


/thread

 

[Banco]

Some combination of EM/IM/General Surgery/OB.

Basically you'll need to know a little of everything to handle the most common things.

 

[Goro]

I know this is a serious place where people ask serious questions, and I’m actually seriously asking this, but I was wondering which medical specialty would be most in demand/useful if a nuclear war occurred and left society in shambles.

Hmmmm...great interview question!

EM

 

[wholeheartedly]

i don’t think i want to survive a nuclear war.

 

[Select All That Apply]

I know this is a serious place where people ask serious questions, and I’m actually seriously asking this, but I was wondering which medical specialty would be most in demand/useful if a nuclear war occurred and left society in shambles.

Psychiatry.

“Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings." These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of the their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”

There is no specialty that will be able to put a band-aid on a nuclear war or a society in shambles. Most Americans would not be able to handle the psychological impact of having to serve in a war. And honestly, thank God that we've had peace on home soil for over twenty years.

 

[LunaOri]

Whichever one has the biggest supply of morphine.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Whichever one has the biggest supply of morphine.

Anesthesiology?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

If the punchline isn't nuclear medicine or pharmacy, I will be disappointed.

 

[john7991]

i don’t think i want to survive a nuclear war.

I always thought that this was a selfish thing to say. I love humanity even though we’re capable of terrible things, but wouldn’t you want to try to help everyone build society up to what it once was?

 

[LizzyM]

Naturopaths.... I wish I were kidding.

 

[deleted1065184]

Very surprised nobody has said family medicine, bc that's the obvious choice here imo lol

 

[doomer_md]

Just some power armor is all you need,

 

[wholeheartedly]

I always thought that this was a selfish thing to say. I love humanity even though we’re capable of terrible things, but wouldn’t you want to try to help everyone build society up to what it once was?

I’m thinking more along the lines of nuclear war and everybody getting either vaporized, severely burned/maimed, or horrific cancers years later. I imagine being in the instantly vaporized would be least awful?

If far from the fallout/no injuries, do I want to help build society to what it once was? Not so much. Humans largely suck and we’re awful to each other and the planet. Bet we could do better, otherwise I’d probably just shift into survival mode and hide with some rescue dogs.

 

[LizzyM]

I’m thinking more along the lines of nuclear war and everybody getting either vaporized, severely burned/maimed, or horrific cancers years later. I imagine being in the instantly vaporized would be least awful?

If far from the fallout/no injuries, do I want to help build society to what it once was? Not so much. Humans largely suck and we’re awful to each other and the planet. Bet we could do better, otherwise I’d probably just shift into survival mode and hide with some rescue dogs.

Almost 40 years ago, a couple of guys imagined what it would be like if a brief nuclear war took place a few years into the future and all but wiped out NYC, San Antonio TX and a few other US cities as well as some Russian cities (presumably). The book was called Warday and Wikipedia has a long synopsis of the book which is written from the viewpoint of two journalists who tour the US about 5-10 years later interviewing people and writing a report.

From what I remember, after the deaths in the immediate aftermath, there are people who have lifetime doses of radiation so high that they are triaged out of any one-on-one contact with physicians and won't be treated for any illness that might occur. (Some physicians are willing to meet with these people in groups to provide counseling and advice.) There is a very deadly outbreak of flu perhaps made worse by immunocompromise of the hosts and the lack of immunizations of the population. There are issues of infertility and birth defects. Euthanasia is more widely practiced than it was in the 1980s.

It is an interesting book even all these years later.

 

[Monkitty]

Considering family medicine is designed in many ways to practice in lower resource and rural areas where other providers may not be, they seem like the best bet for after a nuclear war.

EM would be useful in the immediate aftermath and maybe for a few weeks but after that immediate triage I feel like their role could be better filled by family medicine. If infrastructure collapses then surgery would be limited in what they could do. They would still be important but how many open heart surgeries do you think will occur after an apocalypse? Minor things like wound management, minor lack repair, and setting of fractures could all be handled by family medicine. Pretty much the same logic applies for OBGYN. Complicated pregnancies will probably experience an increase in mortality and morbidity due to lack of resources while complex GYN (which will probably have a lot more of- thanks radiation) will likewise be difficult to treat without proper facilities.

Obviously it would be great to still have all these specialties but family medicine is designed to do a little bit of everything. I can't think of a better specialty to have in a low resource environment where most major problems just can't be managed definitely anymore.

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

You all are way too optimistic about what kind of resources you’ll have available after wide scale nuclear war. Society is going to be set back a thousand years or more and you’re worried about lac repairs? For those that survive the initial blast effects and fallout for the first 2 weeks, mass starvation will take immediate effect. As they say, society is only 9 meals away from anarchy.

Heck, it wouldn’t even take large scale nuclear war to do this much damage. Using EMPs to take out the electrical grid would kill off 60-90% of Americans because nobody has any idea how to survive without electricity. Our own government knows this. It’s not just our enemies on earth we have to worry about either, as a super large solar flare would have the same effect.

Former CIA Director: 'Two Thirds Of The US' Could Die From An Attack On The Country's Power Grid

An EMP strike could kill a majority of the US population, according to recent Congressional testimony from James Woolsey

www.businessinsider.com

Big Hoss

PS: A country boy can survive...

 

[Monkitty]

@Big Time Hoosier personally I think you make a great case for family med. While all of medicine is very reliant on technology, family med is accustomed to handling and intervening on things before they require a higher level of care. They are the ones who (generally) have and maintain the skills that will continue to be usable in what would amount to a pre-industrial society. Large percentages of the population will die quickly. Life expectancy will drop (not just because of radiation exposure, etcetera) because we will no longer be able to care for the more complicated and higher acuity situations. Family med will be well positioned to handle the lower acuity conditions which will predominate and that we have the resources to handle. Basically we'll just go back to the good old days of country doctors doing pretty much everything with a bucket, some rags, and a knife.

And I totally think good lac repair will be vital in a world where antibiotics are probably going to be very scarce. A good clean out and closure is going to be a pretty essential to avoid nasty infections.

Disclaimer: not family med, just mad respect for them

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

Basically we'll just go back to the good old days of country doctors doing pretty much everything with a bucket, some rags, and a knife.

And leeches. Don’t forget the leeches.

Big Hoss