Tweet

Every time you decide you know everything a new edition of Auerbach comes out!

Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine 7e offers current information with authority-of-resource for ever-advancing  wilderness medicine and outdoor methods. This is my go-to reference for all things physiological and emergency medical for austere environments, backcountry and wilderness.

Auerbach is discounted online! This is THE heavyweight text, all 12.4 pounds and 2848 pages in two volumes. Purchase the printed volumes and get the code opening access to a heavy dose of weighty, yet weightless resources at your fingertips–this enormous reference is online and includes associated videos.

Auerbach 7e is a compendium of wilderness medicine and wilderness methods produced by many leading contributors and edited by Dr. Paul S. Auerbach & team (Tracy A. Cushing MD and N. Stuart Harris MD) to bridge the gap between outdoor leaders, first responders and professional medical practitioners in austere environments and to guide that continuum of emergency planing and emergency response, come what may.

This is the leading textbook of wilderness medicine, but the term textbook fails to comprehend the full utility of this resource. These volumes are gimbals and compass for orientation and navigation through the academic space encompassing medicine in wilderness and austere environments, search and rescue, human performance and limits to performance, and humans performing in wilderness and austere environments, land and water.

Are you a wilderness or outdoor sports medical practitioner or a developing world medical aid worker? Are you a first responder, or search and rescue leader? Are you an outdoor program leader, an adventure professional? Are you an an outdoor technical communicator? You all may need Auerbach on your shelf and at your fingertips on your mobile device and laptop.

Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine 7e is published by health care and science publisher Elsevier, October 2016.

This heavyweight class resource is not light reading. Its extraordinary scope and depth is evident in these few excerpts from the 126 chapters in 17 parts in 2 volumes…

PART 1 Mountain Medicine

Chapter 1 High-Altitude Physiology – Robert C. Roach, Justin S. Lawley, and Peter H. Hackett

“More than 40 million tourists visit recreation areas above 2400 meters (m), or 7874 feet, in the American West each year. … Increasingly, physicians and other health care providers are confronted with questions of prevention and treatment of high altitude medical problems, as well as the effects of altitude on pre existing medical conditions.”

Chapter 2 High-Altitude Medicine and Pathophysiology – Peter H. Hackett, Andrew M. Luks, Justin S. Lawley, and Robert C. Roach

Regarding Acute Mountain Sickness…

“Optimal prevention strategy is based on assessment of risk associated with the planned ascent profile (Table 2-4). Graded ascent with slow increases in sleep elevation is the surest and safest method of prevention, …”

Chapter 4 Avalanches – Colin K. Grissom, Martin I. Radwin, Scott E. Mcintosh and Dale Adkins

“Traveling safely in avalanche terrain requires special preparations, including education and carrying safety and rescue equipment. The group should have skills required to anticipate and react to an avalanche.”

Chapter 5 Lightning-Related Injuries and Safety – Mary Ann Cooper, Christopher J. Andrews, Ronald L. Holle, Ryan Blumenthal, and Norberto Navarrete Aldana

“Pay more attention to lightning than rain. Approximately 10% of all cloud-to-ground lightning strikes occur without rain at the location of the ground strike, so waiting for rain to arrive does  not provide certain protection from lightning when a thunder storm approaches.”

PART 2 Cold and Heat

Chapter 7 Accidental Hypothermia – Daniel F. Danzl and Martin R. Huecker

“To maintain core temperature in the narrow band necessary for peak functioning in cold environments, appropriate adaptive behavioral responses are essential.”

Chapter 10 Nonfreezing Cold Induced Injuries – Christopher H. E. Imray, Charles Handford, Owen D. Thomas, and John W. Castellani

“Nonfreezing cold-induced injury should be considered a syndrome, and presentation is variable. NFCI is insidious in onset, often with few objective clinical signs at presentation, and one must take into account the history and environment.”

Chapter 12 Pathophysiology of Heat-Related Illness – Lisa R. Leon, and Robert W. Kenefick

“Heat illnesses are best viewed as existing along a continuum transitioning from the mild condition of heat exhaustion to heat injury and the life-threatening condition of heatstroke …”

PART 4 Trauma

Chapter 21 Wound Management – Ramin Jamshidi

“Ideally, hair around the wound is trimmed because the roots harbor bacteria. Hair should be trimmed to a few millimeters in height because shaving at the surface increases infection rates by causing superficial skin trauma. Eyebrow hair is an important exception, because trimming or shaving can result in permanent abnormal hair growth. If hair trimming is not possible, an antiseptic ointment can be used to paste the hair down away from the wound.”

Chapter 29 Injury Prevention: Decision-making, Safety, and Accident Avoidance – Eunice M. Singletary and David S. Markenson

“Underlying injury prevention is the concept that when an injury occurs it is usually the result of a series of events under specific circumstances that, had they been identified in advance, might have been avoided, addressed, and/or eliminated to prevent or mitigate the injury. In the field of injury prevention, ‘accidents’ are defined as unpredictable acts of fate or chance events, whereas ‘injuries’ are defined as damages resulting from a sequence of accidents or intentional actions. Injuries are prevented by stopping or reducing the number of accidents causing them and/or eliminating the intentional actions and situations that lead to them.”

PART 5 Animals and Zoonoses

Chapter 32 Bear Behavior and Attacks – Luanne Freer

“The image of bears as “man-eaters” ignites our fear of them. Human injury and deaths from natural phenomena, especially wild animal attacks, are sensationalized. Bear attacks are rare, but the psychological impact of widespread media coverage inflates the perception of their frequency and significance. Every bear attack is traditionally referred to as a ‘mauling’, regardless of the extent of injuries. The term contributes to the emotional response regarding such attacks and leads to “bearanoia” in many people who visit bear country.”

Chapter 34 Wilderness-Aquired Zoonoses – Jamie R. Shandro and Joshua M. Jauregui

“A ‘zoonoses’ is an infectious disease that may be transmitted from animals to humans under natural conditions. There are more than 200 zoonotic pathogens, and potential infections vary by animal species (Table 34-1). The risk of acquiring zoonoses increases proportionately with the frequency and intensity of contact with animals. For example, hunters and trappers who handle and are exposed to the blood, viscera, secretions, and excretions of wild animals are at much greater risk than are recreational campers.”

PART 7 Surgical and Medical Interventions

Chapter 46 Improvised Medicine in the Wilderness – Kenneth V.  Iserson and Darryl J. Macias

“At the heart of wilderness medicine is improvisation, a creative blend of medicine and commonsense problem solving in a resource-limited setting.”

Part 8 Rescue and Survival

Chapter 55 Search and Rescue – Donald C. Cooper and Will Smith

“SAR systems provide the response for overdue, lost, injured, or stranded persons, usually in connection with outdoor activities and environments. In the context of SAR, ‘wilderness’ can take on several meanings.”

Chapter 59 Essentials of Wilderness Survival – Peter Kummerfeldt  and Warren D. Bowman Jr.

“Throughout this description of fires and firecraft, the term ‘build a fire’ has been used instead of the more commonly used phrase ‘start a fire’. This choice is deliberate. ‘Building a fire’ implies that there is a process involved that, if followed, will result in success.”

PART 9 Plants and Mushrooms

Chapter 68 Ethnobotany: Plant Derived Medical Therapy – Kevin Davison and Bryan L. Frank

“A surprisingly large number of minor medical conditions encountered in an outdoor setting can be treated with plants in that location.”

PART 13 Food and Water

Chapter 88 Field Water Disinfection – Howard D. Backer

“It is widely believed that streams purify themselves and that certain water sources are reliably safe for drinking. These concepts have some truth but do not preclude the need for disinfection to ensure water quality.”

“The boiling time required is important when fuel is limited. The previous recommendation for treating water was to boil for ten minutes and add one minute for every 305 m (1000 feet) in elevation. However, data indicate this is not necessary for disinfection.”

“any water brought to a boil should be adequately disinfected.”

 PART 15 Wilderness Equipment and Special Knowledge

Chapter 102 Wilderness Preparation, Equipment, and Medical Supplies – Michael S. Lipnick and Mathew R. Lewin

“Careful evaluations of weather patterns, participant health, planned activities, rescue options, and journey duration are critical to pretrip preparation and can help guide prevention and treatment plans for anticipated injuries and illnesses”

Chapter 106 Wilderness Navigation Techniques – Steven C. Carleton

“All of navigation boils down to two processes: (1) determination of direction and (2) establishment of position. Awareness of position and direction permit practice of a fundamental process in navigation, the process of “dead” (deduced) reckoning.”

Chapter 110 Outdoor Clothing for the Wilderness Professional – Jennifer Dow

“Dressing in layers enhances the wearer’s ability to adapt to a changing environment, with each layer maximizing the properties of the garment’s construction. Layering permits addition and subtraction of clothing, adjusting to changes in body temperature and metabolic output.”

PART 16 Wilderness Medicine Education and Research

Chapter 113 Wilderness Medicine Education – James R Liffrig, Shana L. Tarter, Tod Schimelpfenig and Gates Richards

“Some basic steadfast principles exist throughout modern academic thinking on adult education. The concept of proximity means that learning is enhanced and mastery achieved when new information or skills are used immediately. … Reading is important, but cannot replace education that takes place in “real life.”

PART 17 The Wilderness

Chapter 118 Wilderness Management and Preservation – Chad P. Dawson and John C. Hendee

“Wilderness management should not mold nature to suit people. Rather, it should manage human use and influences so as not to alter natural processes. … In wilderness, people adapt to nature, to naturalness and solitude, and that is the source of human benefits from wilderness experience as well as the ecological and non-use benefits.”

Chapter 120 Biodiversity and Human Health – Richard S. Salkowe

“What has become alarmingly evident is that the present rate of ecosystem destruction, species extinction, and loss of genetic variety on planet Earth is associated with a concurrent increase in prevalence of invasive species, severity of damage associated with natural disasters, and spread of infectious disease.”

Tom Bain, Outdoor Readiness