Look at my new post - So You’re the Medic. Now What?

By Brian Greenleaf

As a survival group, you’ve got a well structured plan in place to deal with a disaster. You’ve assembled your friends and neighbors and established a meeting place where you’ll all gather when the SHTF. You have a basic plan of action for whom will do what, how and where your compound will be set up, etc. Everyone in the group has been storing food and needed supplies and you’ve drilled to make sure everything goes smoothly when the time comes.

While you’re miles ahead of the vast majority of those who foolishly don’t see the necessity in prepping, you’ve still got a long way to go.

Hopefully you’ve preplanned well enough to have elected a capable medic or two.

While we all know that every hand in the group will be needed for food prep and gathering, construction, gardening, security, etc, the medic is a position in and of itself with responsibilities far beyond most of the others in your community.

Aside from participating in all the other activities of the group, the medic will also be responsible for the overall health of the group, hygiene in the community, cleanliness and disease prevention as well as dealing with sickness, injuries and, let’s face it, possibly even dealing with bullet extractions and meatball surgery.

If you’re lucky enough to have an MD in your group, you’re miles ahead of the game. Unfortunately, from my experience anyway, very few doctors appear to be very interested in prepping. Those who are have probably established their own SHTF group, or are just prepping to deal with the needs of their own families.

Suffice it to say, for most of us, the group medic won’t be an MD.

Hopefully you’ve got someone in your group with at least EMT training and plenty of practical experience. Paramedic level training would be almost ideal, and a seasoned RN better yet. If no one in your group is at least an EMT, it’s time to either recruit one or find someone in your group willing to get the training and the knowledge that will, without question, be necessary in a grid down, communal situation.

The job of the group medic should start long before the SHTF. He or she should be collecting any and all information available on a wide variety of medical issues including, and probably most importantly, emergency, non-mainstream medical procedures and herbal remedies, as well as honing the skills you already have. While you may think that the group has an ample supply of various medicines, notions and potions, one outbreak of a contagious bacterial infection (highly probable when running water is questionable and sewage disposal is primitive at best) and your supply of antibiotics is gone.

And you won’t be able to call the pharmacy for refills!

Start a library now. While books may seem like extra weight, should you find yourself in a situation where you need to either perform emergency surgery or a patient/friend will die, you’ll certainly be glad you have that field surgical manual with you. Whether you’ve done it before or not, should that unthinkable situation present itself (and it more than likely will-cuts, broken bones, etc.), it’s show time and you’re the headliner. Will you be ready?

Sanitation, malnutrition, hygiene, proper trash disposal and insuring that human waste is properly handled are all part of the job of the group medic and need to be taken very seriously. There is a myriad of information available on these subjects and you should be reading all you can find, burning it into your memory and collecting various reference materials. Disease due to bacteria from filth, impure water or just the constant close proximity to others will, ideally, be your biggest obstacle, but in reality will probably only be the routine part of a much bigger responsibility.

Having a good knowledge of the health of those in your group beforehand is tantamount to starting off a grid down scenario on the right foot. Either write out an in depth questionnaire to get a complete and detailed record from everyone in your group, or snag one off of the net, but have everyone in your group fill it out honestly and completely and study each of them carefully. Know your patients. Know what conditions each person has, what medications they take and what, if anything, they’re allergic to. If they require prescription medications, know what they are, how they work (make a PDR a must in your library) and ask them to start requesting their doctor write their prescriptions in three month or longer quantities. Instruct them to keep as much as possible aside at all times (rotating it every few months to insure they’re not expired). In time, it will probably be necessary to send a group out to gather various medicines and medical supplies-if there are any left after the looters have had their way. Hopefully, but definitely not a given, some form of higher medical service with pharmaceuticals will be available after thirty days (legitimately or for barter). However, as preppers, we must plan for the end of the world and prepare to survive entirely with what we have or what we can produce or procure.

Plan on performing an overall exam on everyone in your group at one of your training sessions/gatherings long before the lights go out-and not one of those “Hi, how are you, that’ll be $200, five minute type exams most of us get from our doctors these days. Say what you will, but you can’t detect a murmur, bruits or rales through clothing. Perform a thorough, detailed, head to toe exam, including a skin exam, and insure that they see their doctor about anything you find right away and get it corrected or controlled. Chances are that after the SHTF, most of the group will be spending every daylight hour in the sun; gardening, building shelters and whatever else is required to live for however long it takes some semblance of society to be reestablished. Melanomas are curable if they’re caught early and treated. Should it present itself in your group when there are no oncologists to be found, you may be witness to the long and painful death of a friend.

Those with heart or respiratory conditions or hypertension will be stressed far beyond any “normal” level due to the overall severity of the situation-as well as the exertion they’ll be required to put forth to establish a suitable habitation. Not having an ample supply of their meds, and without someone keeping a close eye on their level of exertion, could incapacitate them rapidly. Stress and overexertion could bring on a heart attack or a stroke and the demise of someone you thought enough of to invite into your world.

This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the responsibilities of the group medic. The requirements of the job are massive. Your first consideration should be whether you’re up to the task. Search your heart and soul and make certain that you feel in your heart of hearts that you’re up to the responsibilities. Are you capable of taking scalpel in hand and cutting into someone-possibly someone under little or no anesthesia…possibly even a close family member? If not, be honest with your group and allow them to find someone else. Your services will certainly be valuable in some other aspect of the group collective and your friends, the only people you’ll probably be seeing and socializing with for a very long time, deserve the best care available under the circumstances.

There are far too many threats to our way of living these days; from financial devastation to terrorism and disease…the list goes on and on. While we all hope that our prepping efforts will never be more than just that-preparation, being unprepared is a fool’s errand destined to lead to catastrophe.

Later, we’ll delve into some of the absolute necessities the group medic should already have on hand, and some that the group as a whole will need to have in order to set up a suitable clinic in your community.

Until next time, keep studying and prepping!

 

 

Brian Greenleaf is a former paramedic with extensive training in herbal medicine, body work and massage. He and his wife, Brenda, an RN, have been prepping and training for three years.

 

 

 

 

 

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So You’re the Medic. Now What?

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