Here's PN talking about the class:
So I'll evaluate the class based on the fact that it's supposed to be how to identify, prevent, and treat illness when there is minimal access to medical help. It's a prepper medical class, basically. But the lessons can be immediately applied to day to day life, which is pretty neat.
The class was broken down into modules of physical assessment, respiratory disease, digestive disease, wound care, and post mortem considerations.
Leading into it all was a cool acronym that is a reminder on the basic ideas of medical care. the K.A.T.C.P. protocol. Know, Assess, Take Care Of, Contain, and Prevent. They're pretty self explanatory, but some really nice lessons inherent in this are that you should understand your baseline (so you can see when you deviate from it, indicating disease), and to devote a lot of energy to the prevention of disease, rather than having to count on a (possibly non-existent) medical intervention, depending on your scenario. That's damn good advice that is immediately applicable today. Don't wait until it's E.R. worthy, fix your shit now.
There is some practical time spent learning to take blood pressure with a cuff and stethoscope, pulse, as well as checking the lung fields for breath sounds. Getting the hands on time was very useful. I spent a month in the hospital 5 years ago, and watched my blood pressure taken every few hours, so I sort of figured out what they were doing, but it's always good to get 'trigger time' doing the deed.
Then the respiratory segment started. The signs of respiratory infection and some overview stuff about evaluation, and then some stuff on how to help fix a respiratory infection. I'll give you a spoiler, the aides are the same things that every athlete should be doing. Water, Vitamin D and sunshine, and rest. Following were treatment options. As is my personal philosophy, use of antibiotics was discussed as a last resort. Lastly, prevention was discussed. As should be common knowledge, hygiene, rest, and ventilation were the primary means discussed. This block concluded with scenarios that were discussed in small groups. We even did a cool calculation on dosing antibiotics using the nurses drug handbook. It's another good exercise to actually do.
The digestive diseases were next. The why, how, and when were discussed. The indicators of dehydration were next, and those are useful for anyone who spends time with groups outside during physical exertion. Then a nice home-made rehydration recipe was shared, composed of table salt, sugar, maybe some KCl salt alternative, and a liter of water. Then the super useful method of rectal rehydration was discussed. The details can be googled, I'm sure. The segment was again concluded with a scenario.
Wound care was the next topic. The biggest take away for me was to keep accurate charts, as well as dry heat sterilization temperatures for instruments. Rashes, blisters, punctures, dog bites, and dressing wounds were highlighted as well.
Post mortem care was the last topic. I felt like this section was a little out of place in the curriculum, and could possibly be dropped in lieu of more content on the other diseases, or at least shortened to just the aspects directly related to austere conditions and disease containment, rather than emotional and spiritual aspects. That's must my opinion, as most of the class seemed to be fine with the segment.
The coolest thing I learned was about stockpiling antibiotics in the form of veterinary grade drugs. FishMox, Penicillin, erythromycin can all be had through veterinary supply channels. Good stuff.
That's the course in a nutshell. Next I'll share a few things that I think could be done a bit more smoothly (I realize unsolicited opinions are generally never wanted, but I can't help myself). I think a 'purchase cheat sheet' would have been extremely useful for students wanting to buy the items we used in the class. Instead, every time a piece of gear was mentioned, PN would refer us to her Amazon click-through store. This is fine, but it takes away from time we could be discussing the topics. I'm all about meat and potatoes during a class.
PN kept referencing her 201 level class during the 101 level class. I suspect she's currently giving a lot of brain sweat to developing her curriculum for that course, so I get it. But, I would have liked to have some more depth of the topics discussed, instead of the sales pitch for the next course. If that makes sense.
Overall, it's a cool 1 day class that is a huge step outside of what I've been concentrating on for the last few years. I was immediately able to put the information to use, as my son caught his first virus 3 days after I got back. Runny nose, cough, no fever. This was pretty much exactly a scenario we discussed in the course. I was able to keep my wife calm enough to keep us out of the E.R. in Milwaukee on our trip, and instead convinced her to wait until a local pediatrician opened the next day. So that was pretty nice.
Overall, I would say that the course lived up to it's mission statement.
Thanks to PN for inviting me to check her out.
Later,
M
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