Telemedicine is actually something the military is looking at again. All the way from Skype calls to just grabbing a hand mike attached to a radio and describing the injury sets. I think a data burst sent over the radio would be more than sufficient. Allow the doc to see all your notes, pictures, etc. and then he can brief you on what to do. And this isn’t just for SF anymore. It’s getting pushed down to regular units. Army is looking at what to do when evac times get longer than one hour. Because most medics don’t know what to do after waiting 4+ hours outside of just reassess. It’s a pretty cool concept and we’ve dived into it on our pre deployment cycle. It has relevance to an APC patrolling a community as well. Because maybe you know a doctor, but he’s two towns over and with the Russians (or whoever) patrolling through you can’t take your buddy with GSW’s straight to
Him. Or on top of economic strife a hurricane has knocked out roads and flooded others. It’s an important concept that I think should warrant a lot more attention. Each community doesn’t need a doctor persay, but just someone skilled in basic medical techniques, knowledge of homeopathy and the horticulture knowledge to find those plants, basic nursing skills, and is competent with trauma. Like a town healer. Then you have doctors that do rotations or travel
Between a few towns throughout the year for regular check ups, serious issues that need checked in on. They wouldn’t need to show up for every birth because midwives in each community would be able to handle those. But he should be able to get radio communication with those town healers if he needs to. He may need assistance with a certain situation, or they may need to get a hold of him. But that’s just my word vomit on the subject.
