Educating common people on professional subjects, is it helpful or is it an asking for a disaster?

[Sushan Ekanayake]

Nowadays people tend to google their symptoms and try to diagnose and treat their own selves. But in most occasions this has ended up with disasters and people getting unnecessarily panicked.

Here via this book William W Forgey has tried to educate common people on emergency medical management in a quite deep level. He has tried to make a person able to provide medical care in an emergency situation without any help from the professionals.

Though I agree that having medical knowledge can be useful, this can worsen the scenario by a non-profesional trying to play the hero. What do you think?

A simple example:

In case of possible neck injury, the airway can be opened by lifting the jaw without moving the neck.

(Location 768 - Kindle version)

This is the only mentioning about the important, yet difficult, and has to be practiced and precised, jaw-thrust-maneuver. Trying to apply this with no or inadequate practice will clearly put the victim in more danger.

[ROSEY-ANN]

Educating the general public on professional subjects can be useful as it allows persons to gain insight into why professionals act in the way they do. In this instance, it adds meaning to the activities that we see being carried out by doctors. It can be disastrous if untrained persons carry out activities that should be done by trained medical professionals.

[Ngozi Onyibor]

Educating the general public on professional subjects can be useful as it allows persons to gain insight into why professionals act in the way they do. In this instance, it adds meaning to the activities that we see being carried out by doctors. It can be disastrous if untrained persons carry out activities that should be done by trained medical professionals.

I agree with you. Knowing why doctors do what they do or what they are doing will undoubtedly calm a patient down. Moreover, I think the book's teachings are meant to be applied in emergencies before the arrival of a professional.

[Ailakhu Yusau Aizhebiomon]

For me, I think it's very useful to educate the general public on professional subjects. However, it's should be on the peripheral and not at a deep level as the author did. For instance, educating the public on emergency and first aid medical procedures that people can undertake before a professional takes over isn't a bad idea as it helps save more lives in a time of emergency and danger.

[Humera955]

I don't think any non-medico can get medical knowledge just through a single book as it takes a lot to be a medical practitioner. myself being a med student I would say a common person cannot handle medical emergencies, but it is always great to add to your knowledge through the books.

[Namaste23]

I would hope someone would only use this book when absolutely necessary, say when a person is going to die anyway and you are their only and last chance to survive. Otherwise, I do agree, if your only medical knowledge is from this book, you may be asking for the situation to get worse.

[Raluca_Mihaila]

Education is always a good thing. I strongly believe that an educated person will know exactly what he/she is capable to do in a certain critical event. There are many situations when a common person managed to keep the victim alive until the ambulance arrived.

[Asma Aisha Ansari]

This is a question that I too have in my mind ever since I've been reading this book. I think there are certain procedures that cannot be performed by non-medical professionals. But I think reading this book will create an awareness in the reader's mind about the different useful procedures. That way, a reader, who cannot do certain difficult maneuvers, can at least avoid doing something harmful with the knowledge he/she has gained through this book. This is the approach I've been using to read this book. If I can't do something, at least I know about all the wrong things that I shouldn't be doing.

[Kira Bonita Reece]

I think it is useful to some extent. Its always good to know what to do in an emergency situation and how to help somebody who is in distress. Whether you know what to do or not, if you see someone about to die, you are going to want to try and help them even before the professionals arrive. So I think its best to know than to be completely clueless.

[Virginia Mati]

I think it is of great importance to have some medical knowledge. In my opinion, William W. Forgey is trying to create awareness on ways to manage emergency cases without the help of a professional. In some cases, this can be a cause of great agony and can as well add more problems if not managed in the most appropriate way. For me, I think that it remains very crucial to be or consult a professional while handling even emergencies, rather than just acting professionally.

[Hhannahh]

I disagree with where you said that "...in most occasions, this has ended up with disasters..." Self-medication doesn't often go wrong.
The knowledge the author shares in this book is necessary, and the good in knowing them supersedes that bad. The author also made it clear that the knowledge is to be used for emergencies, which I believe implies life and death situations. I believe you would do almost anything to save the life of a loved one, including taking certain risks.

[Susan Kihleng]

I think it's helpful. I do see your point in that a non-professional could end up causing more damage, but I think it's also a good idea for anyone to have basic life-saving skills for emergencies. Living on a remote island with limited medical care, I've seen first hand the need for this multiple times. Just two examples that come to mind is one, an elderly man had a heart attack and I was the only one present trained in CPR and First Aid. It was well over an hour before any medical professional was able to arrive on the scene. And two, my own daughter stopped breathing and we were more than 30 minutes from the nearest medical clinic. Both of these are times where my medical knowledge, though limited, came into play. I feel this book would have been a valuable resource for me, and I'm definitely going to be keeping it on hand now.

[SweetSourSalty AndSpicy]

I think we are more afraid of the things that we do not know. More so, we can only prepare and can never be ready. The good thing about the book is that it provides information. It promotes awareness that medical emergencies for non-medical people are not entirely hopeless situations. The knowledge and the attitude mentally prepare us. So when the real action happens, we do not panic. We think clearly, function better, hence, more productive by staying calm during stressful situations. It is like an earthquake drill that conditions our reaction time when the actual shake happens. Or a fire extinguisher that is better to have than not having at all. The objective is to help extend the life and not play heroes. Hopefully, circumstances spare us from such life-threatening emergencies. And when they do happen, help is on the way.

[Alexandur Gicov]

In my opinion, it can be pretty useful for certain exercises for first aid that do not require more in-depth knowledge. But for more complex emergency methods in which you have to apply actions that require training and precision can affect in a worse way. In connection with diagnoses, doctors go through the difficult task of learning everything in a certain field to be specialists, so we appreciate them and listen to them, even if we sometimes tend to use irrational methods, such as self-diagnosis.

[Iva Stoyanova]

I think it is useful but only to some extent. It's always good to know what we could do in an emergency. Of course, we should not deepen into things as we could make them worse. Overall, the book has a valid point of helping the general public save lives.