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.
-
May 06 2011
Brief Introduction to Search and Rescue
Finding lost persons in the wilderness is, unfortunately, increasingly necessary as greater numbers of persons explore in the outdoors. Beyond the need to find explorers in remote environments, there is the common situation of a young child wan...
-
Apr 25 2011
Rifaximin Therapy for Irritable Bowel
Chemical structure of rifaximin.Outdoor activities, particularly those that involve foreign (outside the United States) travel, and even more particularly those in underdeveloped countries, can be interrupted with unpleasant diarrhea. The most ...
-
Apr 21 2011
Smart Phones and Crisis Mapping
Crisis Map of Haiti, 2010, via the OpenStreetMap projectI’d like to use this post to mention a new concept for wilderness medicine that was introduced to me at the Wilderness Medical Society annual meeting this past summer in Snowmass by Satchi...
-
Apr 18 2011
Heat or Cold Treatment for Muscle Strain
Along with blisters and sprains, muscle strains are among the most common afflictions for active persons in the outdoors. Common medical dogma is to use the “RICE” approach for sprains and strains of—rest, ice (application of cold), compression...
-
Apr 11 2011
Rescue Essentials: The Outdoor Gear You Need
Wilderness medicine folks are often considered to be “gearheads.” That is, we love to try out new outdoor equipment, whether it is for our activities, search and rescue, or personal safety. Improvisation is important, but it’s better to have wh...
-
Apr 04 2011
Environmental Microorganisms and Childhood Asthma
This past week, there was discussion on the internet about an article entitled “Exposure to Environmental Microorganisms and Childhood Asthma” that was written by Markus Ege, MD and colleagues (New England Journal of Medicine 2011;364:701-709). ...
-
Mar 31 2011
Single Lens Distance Vision Glasses & Outdoor Falls
Like many others my age, my vision is changing. The major change I am encountering at my ripe old age is presbyopia, which is a decreased ability to focus my eyes on objects near to me. This is caused by loss of elasticity of the lenses within ...
-
Mar 24 2011
Winter Sports & Sledding Safety
There are many possibilities for injuries to occur during participation in winter sports (e.g., skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, sledding, ice skating and outdoor hockey, backcountry winter camping, ice climbing, mountaineering, ice fishing,...
-
Mar 21 2011
The Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Reactor Complication
Ofunato, Japan After the Earthquake and TsunamiI have just received word that my good friend N. Stuart Harris, MD, who is Chief of the Division of Wilderness Medicine in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, is i...
-
Mar 15 2011
Radiation Exposure and Japan
Nuclear Power Plant in Cattemom, France, photo by Stefan KuhnAlthough the casualties from the massive earthquake and tsunami of last week are all from the injuries related to the onrush of water, collapse of structures and other related events,...
About the Author
