Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Non-Fiction
Approximate word count: 10-15,000 words
Availability
Click
on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or
Smashwords store
Author:
“Kathleen
A. Handal, M.D. is a nationally and internationally known emergency medicine
‘Doc’. Author of The American Red Cross
First Aid and Safety Handbook, she believes physicians have a
responsibility to teach and share medical common sense.”
For more,
visit Doc Handal’s website.
Description:
“Doc’s
First Aid Guide is an illustrated, first-aid eHandbook designed to be used as a
quick reference and includes 2010 CPR guidelines.”
Appraisal:
This book
is a quick reference first aid guide. It starts with a brief discussion of some
general principles, then gets to the meat with basic first aid steps for
various situations as well as telling you some things you shouldn’t do (some of
which might be your first inclination.)
The Kindle version has a functional Table of Contents for quick access to the
section you need. Although the review copy I received had entries in the TOC
that weren’t functional links, I verified that these appear to be fixed in the
book currently on Amazon.
The first
recommendation you’ll find is to “read this book before you need it.” That’s a
good idea, not only because there are ways you could be prepared for possible
accidents and injuries, but also because there are certain techniques mentioned
multiple times in the text that aren’t explained until the end of the book. I
think putting them at the beginning might have been better and for the Kindle
version, it might make sense to have a hot link to the entry for the various
techniques where they are referenced in the main body of the book for easy
access.
I hesitate
to comment on the content since the author is a professional and what first aid
training I have was more than forty years ago, but I can say there wasn’t
anything (with one or two exceptions) that struck me as wrong or conflicting
with what I do know. One item that struck me strangely was a recommendation
that a first aid kit should have “change for a pay phone.” I guess there are
situations where this might still make sense, possibly an injury that happens
at an isolated highway rest area with a functioning pay phone where there is no
cell phone service or you don’t have a cell phone. But with the scarcity of pay
phones in most places and the ubiquity of cell phones, this might not make much
sense anymore. However, this is minor and something each person should probably
base on their situation, both with cell phone ownership and travel habits.
The other
thing that struck me as strange was in multiple places the book has variations
on the statement that “burns of the fingers, toes, genitals, and eyes always
require medical attention.” In other words, first aid should be done to
alleviate pain and minimize damage, but that the injured person should receive
attention from a medical professional after, presumably as soon as possible. If
these statements are meant to refer to burns of a specific severity and not
minor burns, then it isn’t clear. Taken at face value, that sunburned nose
(technically a first degree burn) or a minor burn on the hand (maybe from
cooking oil splattering) requires a doctor’s attention. I think that is
overkill, although a quick search uncovered the same advice on the website for
the Mayo Clinic.
Doc’s First Aid Guide is a book you’ll hopefully never
need, but if you do, you’ll be glad you have it. Keep it on your ereader and
smartphone with the appropriate app and you’ll always be prepared.
Format/Typo Issues:
No
significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
No comments:
Post a Comment