Well… Anywhere in the US, that is. In this first of a series of articles, I want to discuss communication. As we all know, communication is foundational to any good relationship. We also know that communication is not something we will ever perfect. We must continuously learn and evolve in how we relate to others,…
Docwilderness is Moving
Photo by bruce mars on Pexels.com You may notice over the coming weeks that the postings here are a little more sporadic. The same goes for the Wilderness Weekly podcast that normally comes out every Saturday. This is all due to an upcoming move. With this relocation, however, there will be days or weeks…
Don’t Forget Those Pearly Whites
I was reminded of this just a few days ago. No, not on a camping trip or even in the wilds. It was, nonetheless, a good reminder to review my medical supplies. This is not the sexy side of wilderness medicine. What attracts most of us to the austere or wilderness medical setting is the…
Spinal Protection in the Wilderness: What We’ve Been Doing Wrong for Decades
The latest Wilderness Medical Society Guidelines for spinal cord protection have been released (SCP Guidelines). The results are nothing short of dramatic. If you have been a victim of a traumatic injury over the past 50 years, you have been quickly placed in a cervical collar and strapped to a backboard to “protect your spine”….
What’s in a Name: Docwilderness
Why use the name Docwilderness for your blog? You don’t just write about the woods or camping, after all. In general, I answer that there is so much wilderness around us; why should I restrict what I write or talk about to just one area of the proverbial forest? More specifically, Webster’s dictionary defines wilderness…
Yellow Fever: Is Once a Lifetime Enough?
A recent article in the Journal Lancet, Long-term immunity against yellow fever in children vaccinated during infancy: a longitudinal cohort study, calls into question the 2013 World Health Organization (WHO) decision that a single dose of Yellow Fever vaccine is required for life-long immunity. Until 2013, the requirement was for a dose every 10 years…
Pre-Hospital Care in Mass Casualty Shootings–An Update
Update: In September of 2019, shortly after my post below, Capt. Brad Bennett published an update for the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care (CoTCCC) in the WMS magazine article titled, “Committee on Combat Casualty Care Updates and Expands Recommended Tourniquet List”. I wanted to repost my article with some updates and add a link…
Foraging
Have you or anyone you know ever gone out into the wild to pick blackberries, honeysuckle, rabbit tobacco or mushrooms? If you have, you have been foraging. A time honored tradition and, for millennia, one of the few ways humans could sustain themselves. It has not been, historically speaking, long since humans started farming and…
The Traveller’s Scurge: Traveller’s Diarrhea
As an adjunct to my upcoming podcast this Saturday, I am reposting this article from a few months ago. In this post I want to expand on what I wrote in prior blog concerning being prepared for an upcoming adventure. While Traveller’s Diarrhea was mentioned there briefly, there is so much more that the truly…
Wilderness Trivia
I must admit that I am a huge fan of trivia. Don’t ask me how many Kardashians there are or who won the Oscar for Best picture last year. I am more interested in knowing that a US river ending in the suffix “-amack” means that it has been a river known for good fishing….