So what does life after wilderness medicine fellowship look like?  Pretty awesome!  Now that may be because I’ve decided to take a month or three off of work in order to try and re-charge.  It took me 14 years to get from the start of college to being a board-certified ER doc, so I figured a short hiatus was due.  I also want to give my expedition medicine business some attention in order to see if this is going to be a viable career option.

Nick and I are just about all settled in down in Orlando, FL.  We ran the Disney marathon about 2 weeks ago.  I struggled a bit given that we had just run the Rock N Roll marathon in Vegas about 2 months prior.  But it was a neat course through all of the Disney parks.  Plus my Mom came down to support me!

   
   
I’ve been busy (well, busy is a relative term here….) with my new position as the medical director for Global Limits.  I’m trying to assemble a pool of physicians who would want to come and volunteer at the races.  I’m also going through the medical kit in order to replenish and improve it.  If any readers are interested in coming to one of these races as a physician or even a general volunteer, please let me know.  

And my last order of business has been to try and design some survival kits for both my car and airplane.  I’m usually pretty good about trying to always have at least a rudimentary medical kit with me when traveling.  I figured that I would take it up a notch and create a survival/medical kit.  Nothing more embarrassing than being a wilderness medicine physician who can’t survive an unexpected overnight of car camping because of poor planning…  Now, I am from Wisconsin, so despite my Florida address, I still have an ice scraper along with mittens and hats and fleeces and boots in the back of my car. But apparently the Boy Scouts think that more than those items are necessary.  After lots of time sitting on the Internet, I found that there are 10 survival categories that one should consider.  Insulation.  First Aid.  Nutrition.  Sun Protection.  Navigation.  Shelter.  Fire.  Hydration.  Illumination.  Repair Kit.  So I’m building off of these categories as well as other lists for survival kits that I found online.  This is what I have so far:

  
The two kits have to be slightly different because of weight considerations in the airplane.  I already keep a life raft, 2 quarts of oil, a tow bar, and other essentials in the back of the airplane.  Any thoughts or suggestions?  I would love to hear from people on this one.

Speaking of airplanes, it was a beautiful flight from Wisconsin to Florida on Sunday.  It was a dreary, overcast day over most of Wisconsin and northern Illinois.  But luckily, at just 3800 feet in the air, nothing but beautiful blue skies.  We even were routed directly over Disney on our approach into Kissimee airport.  A perfect flying day!