Healthline Blogs
Dr. Paul Auerbach is the world's leading outdoor health expert. His blog offers tips on outdoor safety and advice on how to handle wilderness emergencies.
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Jun 14 2011
Snakebite and Snake Venom Information
Eastern coral snake, photo courtesy of Norman Benton, CC-BY-SA 3.0The Wilderness Medical Society held its annual meeting at Snowmass last summer July 23-28, 2010. There were numerous terrific educational sessions. In a series of posts, I am goi...
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Jun 09 2011
The Aspects of Humanitarian Medicine
Aid worker administers medicine to Haitian child in Léogâne.With the current wave of natural disasters and international conflicts extant in the world today, the number of people engaged in global humanitarian relief, including medicine, is gro...
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Jun 06 2011
Artificial Breathing in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
The compression stage of CPR.Recent guidelines recommend that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) be done with compressions only, eliminating the requirement for the untrained rescuer to attempt to breathe for (ventilate) the victim. This effe...
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Jun 02 2011
Superfocus Glasses: A Review
Superfocus glassesAs I write this post, I’m wearing my new Superfocus glasses. I was given the glasses by the company to demonstrate, and they are nothing less than remarkable. I’ve used them mostly in two very common settings for me—indoors a...
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May 31 2011
Diving with a Disability
Charles James Shaffer (U.S. Navy) learning to SCUBAOutdoor recreation is intended for everyone, and can be enormously beneficial for persons with disabilities. I am in awe of disabled skiers, climbers, divers, and others who have learned to coo...
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May 26 2011
Mouth-to-Mouth Breathing Versus Mask-Assisted Breathing
When a person performs cardiopulmonary (heart and lung) resuscitation (CPR), it is sometimes recommended to provide rescue breathing. This is certainly the case when the primary cause of the victim’s difficulty relates to failure to breathe ad...
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May 19 2011
Update on Vaccine Against Meningococcus
One of the most feared infectious diseases for outdoor travelers—particularly children and young adults—meningitis caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus). The infection can appear in outbreaks, most commonly abroad, part...
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May 16 2011
Stopping the Bleeding
The Combat Application Tourniquet Dr. Brad Bennett provided an excellent workshop at the 2010 Wilderness Medical Society annual meeting in Snowmass, Colorado on how to manage severe bleeding, based on his work with the Committee on Tactical Com...
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May 12 2011
Hand Protection for Scuba Divers
I was contacted for advice recently by a scuba diver who had sustained a sting on her fingers after being required to hold onto a rope underwater. She and her fellow divers were caught in rough waters, and needed to hang on to a rope suspended ...
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May 09 2011
How to Avoid Needing Search and Rescue
This post is a continuation of the search and rescue (SAR) advice offered by Dr. Aaron Billin in a lecture he presented at the 2010 Wilderness Medical Society annual meeting. Dr. Billin recommends that anyone heading out to the backcountry s...
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