A Review Of Kenneth V. Iserson's Medical Planning For Extended Remote Expeditions

“Medical Planning for Extended Remote Expeditions” is an article written by Kenneth V. Iserson, M.D., MBA, published in the journal, Wilderness & Environmental Medicine in 2013. Dr. Iserson is Professor Emeritus of Emergency Medicine at the University of Arizona and Medical Director Emeritus of the Southern Arizona Rescue Association (SARA), a volunteer organization that works with local sheriff departments coordinating and conducting wilderness rescue operations. In addition to his current position, he has experience in the last several years, as the Lead Physician for the US Antarctic Program and has taught or practiced medicine on all seven continents.

This article by Dr. Iserson explains the specifics of planning for medical treatment

First, the article’s author is an Emergency Physician and a professor at the College of Medicine and this article was published in a journal that specializes in the specific field of wilderness medicine. Dr. Iserson uses specific medical terminology in reference to procedures, equipment, and conditions with no footnotes provided to explain the complex terminology. These attributes along with the language used throughout each section, show that the audience for this article is not intended for the general public or even general medical professionals or doctors, but for those that specifically practice emergency medicine in a remote or wilderness

Iserson on the importance of proper medical planning for remote expeditions. Following this summary Dr. Iserson then lists the ten key elements of remote healthcare planning, and then he proceeds to explain that following this list has the potential to determine the success of the expedition as a whole. The main claim of the article is placed by itself following the list of these elements, Dr. Iserson (2013) writes, “Planners using these guidelines may better be able to generate a strategy that optimizes the participants’ health benefits, the expedition’s productivity, and the expedition sponsors’ cost saving” (p. 366). By discussing the possibility of overall expedition cost savings and increased productivity, Dr. Iserson is giving the medical community that practices this type of medicine an important document to be used as a reference while in the planning process for their expedition. An additional motive of Dr. Iserson to include this information about overall cost savings could be to expand the potential audience of the article to the financiers of the expedition and to others outside of the medical community. The introduction describes specific historical examples of expeditions that incorporated medical personnel into their ranks, these examples of successful expeditions highlight the importance of integrating medical care into the expedition’s overall plan. The body of this text is broken up into ten distinct