[at-l]OT - First Aid

[cballs at verizon.net (Curtis Balls)]

  _____  

From: at-l-bounces@mailman.backcountry.net
[mailto:at-l-bounces@mailman.backcountry.net] On Behalf Of Gary Buffington
Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2003 10:56 PM
To: AT-L
 
SNIP
 
 All of the first aid measures are worthless and only rapid movement to a
treatment center (any ER) is of value for evaluation of need for antivenin.

[Curtis] 
A-ha! I suspected as much.
 
 
 (For those of you arguing the greed of physicians and the health system:  I
brought them back from the dead at a charge less than the orthodontist gets
for straightening two teeth and my garage gets for a brake job.)  
[Curtis] 
I wasn't aware anyone had complained about the greed of physicians.  I
didn't.  OrangeBug gave what I took to be a tongue-in-cheek retort about
doctor's income to my castigation of the insurance and pharmaceutical
industry's rip off of the public.  I took the reverse meaning to his
statements.  Unless someone else in some other post said something about the
greed of doctors. I can't say.  I don't read all the posts.  I suspect that
doctors as a group are no more or no less greedy than any other professional
group.  Some are dedicated healers, true doctors, and others are just
pulling the cash register ringer.  Not unlike a lot of other professions.
Caveat Emptor!   It isn't health care in the U.S. that is lacking, on the
contrary, it's some of the finest in the world, obviously.  It's the health
care DELIVERY system that's messed up. I've seen some miserable doctors,
really bad, bad manners, bad medicine, bad advice, just awful.  I've also
seen some really fine doctors.  Doctors that I have a great deal of respect
and admiration for, doctors who listen to you, who treat you as an
intelligent person who can understand what's happening once it's explained
and who respond with an appropriate caring response, who's advice is sound
and unbiased and will work with you to find solutions to your health
problems including explaining to you what the medications are for and how
they work, what the side effects might be and other treatment options.  I've
even go so far as to write letters to doctors praising their work.  I think
it's important to tell others, including professionals, when they're doing a
good job and that you appreciate their dedication. The practice of medicine
is as much an art as it is a science.  Whenever I'm seen by a doctor who is
a genuine healer, I don't have a problem with their compensation.  I know
they have a lot of medical school bills to pay.   I've never ever dealt with
an insurance company I didn't despise sooner or later because their
objective seems to be to make your life a living hell from their continual
bureaucratic screw ups and their rules about what they'll pay for and what
they won't.  Over the past year, I've had to be on the phone at least a
dozen times with my insurance company or with my former employer to get my
insurance coverage straightened out because the insurance company has gotten
it all bollixed up.  This is one of the big insurance companies and this
hasn't happened only to me.  Nearly everyone I know who has health insurance
has experienced the same or similar treatment at one time or another, some
frequently.  I don't see how a national health insurance bureaucracy could
be any worse.   I have worked in NYC law firms serving as counsel in suits
involving agents for health insurance companies.  Without explaining the
details, suffice it to say that the compensation of the top agents was part
of the case.  The direct compensation is in the millions and then there are
stock options, retirement plans, expense accounts, etc.  This is just the
top agents, then there's the corporate executives.  Why does our society
reward these people at this level when tens of millions of Americans can't
afford health insurance?   Then there's all the scamming by the
pharmaceutical companies.  The politicians protect these people's interest
because they're paid off.  This shouldn't come as news to anyone.
 
 
However, on the street CPR success has been dismal.  The reason is that the
heart in death goes into ventricular fibrillation and only shock
administered rather soon after the fibrillation begins is ever successful in
correcting the rhythm.  This is the reason Automatic External Defibrillators
(AED's) are becoming more available where people congregate.  In lightning
death the heart stops and the respiratory center is paralyzed; however, the
heart seems often to come back on its own, but breathing does not.  So many
of these victims die of asphyxia.  If they have a pulse and no breathing
they need breathing by mouth to mouth, perhaps for a long time.  So pick
your hiking partners carefully.  Trauma:  Learn the simple treatments for
the common simple problems.  However, those who suffer trauma and are
pulseless or breathless (DRT: Dead Right There) will not be successfully
resuscitated at the scene or the hospital.  They are out of blood.  There is
an old axiom: if a trauma victim is dead in the street, he's dead.  A heart
attack victim in cardiac arrest is different.  He's not out of blood; he has
an arrhythmia.  If his heart stops, it may start with CPR, chest thumps, or
electrical shock by a defibrillator machine.  So, CPR is not worthless in a
heart attack, although there is a low success rate. 
 
[Curtis] 
This is very helpful to know.
 
 Our Health Care System:  I'll not discuss it.   
[Curtis] 
Hmmmm..
 
Gary Buffington
gbuffmd@bigfoot.com
 
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