Medical Self-Care
March, 1978
Being Your Own ParamedicA dinner guest complains of nausea and abdominal pain. His host asks him a few simple questions, then insists on rushing him to the nearest hospital emergency room, where an appendectomy is performed. A carpenter, kept awake by the throbbing of a hammer-blow injury to his thumb, relieves the pain by burning through the nail with a red-hot paper clip. A young father examines his son's aching ear with his own otoscope, then reports his observations to the doctor by phone.No...
