Kenneth V. Iserson’s Improvised Medicine is the technical outlier in this book collection. Rather than telling stories from an ambulance, it examines how clinicians can adapt when ordinary equipment, staffing, and infrastructure are unavailable.
At nearly 600 pages, this is a reference rather than a quick field guide. Its scope ranges across emergency, wilderness, disaster, and austere care. That makes it best suited to an experienced paramedic, physician, nurse, or other clinician who already has a strong foundation and wants to think more systematically about constrained environments.
The book includes techniques such as:
- Make an endotracheal tube in seconds
- Perform digital-oral and blind-nasotracheal intubations
- Clean, disinfect, and sterilize equipment for reuse
- Warm blood units in seconds inexpensively
- Quickly and easily stop postpartum hemorrhage
- Fashion surgical equipment from common items
- Make ECG electrode/defibrillator pads and ultrasound gel
Those examples also explain why this is not a casual gift for every new EMT. Some material reaches beyond ordinary prehospital scope and should not replace current protocols, medical direction, or formal training. For the right reader, however, it is a fascinating collection of problems and adaptations that encourages resourceful thinking without pretending that improvisation is a substitute for preparation.
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