Ethanol makes a piss-poor anesthetic. Too little and there’s screaming agony, too much and the patient expires, and the difference between too little and too much can be measured in milliliters sometimes. NOT an ideal way to do surgery at all.
I’d rather use a ton of local anesthetic, infiltrating as I go, than try to use ethanol as a general anesthetic.
Well, I stand corrected. I thought most cruises tried to visit a port every day or at least every other day.
I try not to be a grammar pedant, but just thought I’d point out your punctuation is all wrong. I think you mean, “Good luck–chum!”
Thinking back to my own case of appendicitis, it built up for several days until it finally became agonizing enough to go to the hospital. My side didn’t hurt at all, it was my stomach, and I thought I’d caught food poisoning or some sort of flu bug.
I have recently arrived home from a cruise where we had 10 sea days in a row. We were scheduled to land at Easter Island, but the seas were too rough.
Back to topic, We had to visit the ships doctor a couple of times, I had a cold and my wife had flu. The medical staff seems very competent and I’m sure they could whip out an appendix if needed. I did hear on the crew grapevine that a passenger in his fifties had a heart attack in the gym and died.
I don’t care to go into the details now, but from one of my experiences in the Coast Guard, I assert that women who are more than 7 months pregnant have no business going on cruises.
I would anticipate Ketamine is in good supply.
IRT your friends shipboard experience, sounds like the day after Thanksgiving in the ER.
Sure. On the Love Boat, Dr. Bricker performed a few emergency surgeries.
Not strictly relevant, but my grandfather died of a heart attack on a cruise. Just lay down on a deck chair, covered himself with a blanket and didn’t wake up. Would have been a great way to go if he weren’t just 64 years old.
Most of them do. These people are pointing out exceptions.
Trans-Atlantic crossings don’t. When I took the QE2 from New York to France we never set into port. However if there were an emergency there are likely closer destinations, such as islands, where the ill person can be evacuated to for a helicopter pickup.
Make for some great wakeboarding though.
[URL=“http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/”]
<visualizing a cruise ship pulling 300 wakeboards>
:: mutter grumble ::
:: carry the two ::
37-55 km/h?!! That’s a lot faster than I would have thought, especially for something as big as a cruise ship. Must be impressive to see. 
My did. He was the 2nd Assistant Engineer on a passenger liner when his appendix went south. The ships doctor was a drunk and my dad would not let the Dr. operate on him. He iced his side for the week it took to get back to SF where he went to the US Public Health Hospital to have his appendix removed.
As a side note a cruise ship is going to be only a day from port. Most liners have a surgery suite. A passenger/cargo ship will not have a medical officer.
I took a “Behind the Scenes” tour on the last cruise that we went on. I was surprised to learn that there is a morgue on every ship, since it is “not uncommon” to have guests pass away during the cruise.
Wow. I didn’t think most cruise lines would accept passengers who were past 24 weeks. Though I guess if the passenger could hide it there is no way they could know for sure…
When we were sailing around Easter Island the nearest decent hospital would have to be over 3000 km’s away, Roughly 5 days.
I’ve been on a cruise ship that did a rescue when a little boat ran over someone, cutting off his limb. This person was stabilized while a helicopter came in. I’m sure it’s not what a cruise ship doc wants to do, but they do have the capability.
In my humble experience most cruise ships will not attempt a helicopter evacuation in most circumstances if they are less than 12 hours from port.
I work 9-1-1 in the Cayman Islands which has the best medical care for a wide swath of the Western Caribbean. In about 8 years on the job I can count the number of times a helicopter evacuation was even considered on one hand.
A helicopter has limited range, particularly if it must make the round trip from its land base without refueling, and may not speed up evacuation by all that much.
They also fall out of the sky from time to time as well, not quite the magic bullet you see on TV.