Medicine should be taught in high school

Another thread was sidetracking, so I start this thread now.

Medicine should be taught in schools. Drugs should no longer require a prescription.

Why?

Teaching medicine would help alleviate health costs and increase the health of a population. Free drug trade is a the only way to avoid the black market - which does not benefit anyone.

"Medicine" is a rather broad topic.

Could you be more specific?

Yes medicine is a rather broad topic. I'm thinking of

- The normal function of the human body (this often gets overlooked. You can't tell what's wrong when you don't know what's normal and benign)
- Conditions, such as hereditary, infectious etc
- Treatment, drugs, safety etc
- Living healthy, nutrition, how not to catch a cold etc
- Theoretical Science, how good studies differ from bad ones, what to look out for in Pharmaceutical Marketing etc
- You know, what *you* think every person should know about "medicine"

What the subject of the new "medicine" classes should be, may also be discussed here.

It seems unlikely that pharmacology could be taught in high school in a way that did not result in numerous disasters from people taking the wrong drugs or too many or the wrong combinations (not forgetting addictive drugs). I guess you might argue that is good for the species as the smarter kids would survive but antibiotic resistance would be unmanageable.

Dabljuh said:

Teaching medicine would help alleviate health costs and increase the health of a population.

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How much 'medicine'? Just the basics? Enough to become a medic?

Aren't most kids already taught the basics in biology class or gym? (Note: I do think that basic health should be taught, but I also think that basic physics, chemistry, and math should be taught as well.)

Free drug trade is a the only way to avoid a black market, that does not benefit anyone.

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Careful with that suggestion.

While I do agree that legalizing narcotics would eliminate eliminate the black market, is it really a good idea to legalize ALL drugs? What about anti-biotics (where the misuse can accelerate the appearance of drug-resistant strains.) Not that I suggest there are junkies looking for their next fix of penecillian, but if all drugs are available without a prescription then people may try to 'cure' themselves without seeing a doctor.

Dogdoctor said:

It seems unlikely that pharmacology could be taught in high school in a way that did not result in numerous disasters from people taking the wrong drugs or too many or the wrong combinations (not forgetting addictive drugs). I guess you might argue that is good for the species as the smarter kids would survive but antibiotic resistance would be unmanageable.

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I claim that teaching basic pharmacology would result in LESS drug-related disasters than the way we handle it now. I.e. scientifically unsound scare-tactics about the dangers of cocaine on the one side, but mandatory ritalin prescriptions on the other.

Segnosaur said:

How much 'medicine'? Just the basics? Enough to become a medic?

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Maybe. You decide. I think you need enough basic medicine education to save your own life, first.

Aren't most kids already taught the basics in biology class or gym? (Note: I do think that basic health should be taught, but I also think that basic physics, chemistry, and math should be taught as well.)

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Biology teaches a lot of stuff, for example evolution and other nonsense (I AM KIDDING DONT LIGHT ME ON FIRE PLEASE) that's also important, but not so much as to be able to diagnose & treat oneself for basic stuff, in my opinion. basic physics, chemistry (not math) are, in my opinion, less important than medical education. Because the latter one is about your butt, and everyone understands "gravity" without knowing "Ep=mhg".

While I do agree that legalizing narcotics would eliminate eliminate the black market, is it really a good idea to legalize ALL drugs? What about anti-biotics (where the misuse can accelerate the appearance of drug-resistant strains.) Not that I suggest there are junkies looking for their next fix of penecillian, but if all drugs are available without a prescription then people may try to 'cure' themselves without seeing a doctor.

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Antibiotics-Abuse is already now a problem. If people are properly taught that antibiotics WILL make the strains in their body immune, and mean that they will not work in the case of an emergency, and that they WILL damage probiotics, that they WILL damage mitochondria permanently, then they'll know better. That's what education is about.

What to do in the middle of nowhere when something goes wrong, and you can't dial 911? Find out in Wilderness Medicine, taught by Marc Nelson, clinical associate professor of surgery, on Wednesdays, beginning April 5.

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http://news-service.stanford.edu/pr/95/950303Arc5348.html

...The medical technology class was developed in 1994 from Carrese's desire to combine teaching, which she loved, with working in hospitals, which she missed. That year, she approached her principal, Niel Tebbano - now the district's director of curriculum and instruction - who gave the idea preliminary approval. Carrese spent the next summer developing the course, and it was approved for Regents credit.

In the fall of 1996, the course had 25 students. Now there are more than 120. The class contains a wide mix - honors students looking for something different, teens interested in the medical field and even some students considering dropping out of high school and looking for some job training.

"I'm looking into colleges for pre-med because of this class," said Kevin Pachucki, a junior. "I came in here kind of blind. I'm just incredibly happy that I took it."

Sixteen-year-old Lisa Lachanski credits that class with giving her enough training to qualify for a job as a nurse's aide at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady. "It's a lot of work," she said. "For this class, there's so much to learn."
...

Students must have two years of previous hard-science experience, and get much of their information off a Web site Carrese has set up. Most of the year is made up of labs where they learn and practice such skills as reading X-rays and prescriptions, identifying diseases from blood samples, learning medical terminology and analyzing medical studies. Every two weeks, they gather to drink decaffeinated coffee or tea and discuss medical ethics, such as the use of aborted fetuses to gather stem cells for a life-saving cancer treatment....

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http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/cis/Archive/stw/mar12.html

Dogdoctor said:

It seems unlikely that pharmacology could be taught in high school in a way that did not result in numerous disasters from people taking the wrong drugs or too many or the wrong combinations (not forgetting addictive drugs). I guess you might argue that is good for the species as the smarter kids would survive but antibiotic resistance would be unmanageable.

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And, if you think it can, spend some time in a HS Chemistry class.

Dabljuh said:

I claim that teaching basic pharmacology would result in LESS drug-related disasters than the way we handle it now. I.e. scientifically unsound scare-tactics about the dangers of cocaine on the one side, but mandatory ritalin prescriptions on the other.

{snip}

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Do you have any evidence to back up any of the claims contained in this statement?

Can we start with nutrition?

Katana said:

Do you have any evidence to back up any of the claims contained in this statement?

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Consider every case of drug overdose, of drug mismatch, and otherwise "irresponsible" drug use, medical and recreational, that could be avoided by additional education. Enough evidence?

Do you have any evidence that falsifies my claim? Like, a study showing that doctors are more likely to die of drug overdoses than analphabets?

strathmeyer said:

Can we start with nutrition?

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... Sure?

Dabljuh said:

Consider every case of drug overdose, of drug mismatch, and otherwise "irresponsible" drug use, medical and recreational, that could be avoided by additional education. Enough evidence?

Do you have any evidence that falsifies my claim? Like, a study showing that doctors are more likely to die of drug overdoses than analphabets?
... Sure?

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"I claim that teaching basic pharmacology would result in LESS drug-related disasters than the way we handle it now. I.e. scientifically unsound scare-tactics about the dangers of cocaine on the one side, but mandatory ritalin prescriptions on the other."

Do you have evidence:

1) that teaching basic pharmacology to high school students would result in FEWER "drug-related" disasters?

2) that "scientifically-unsound scare tactics" are being used w/r to cocaine education?

3) of the existence of mandatory Ritalin prescriptions?

Dabljuh said:

Antibiotics-Abuse is already now a problem. If people are properly taught that antibiotics WILL make the strains in their body immune, and mean that they will not work in the case of an emergency, and that they WILL damage probiotics, that they WILL damage mitochondria permanently, then they'll know better. That's what education is about.

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Yes, and when adults are told this by their doctor they still want her/him to make an exception in their case. Perhaps the students will nod and agree, but I wonder what they will do next time they get tonsillitis.

And that's just antibiotics. What about tranquillizers? Opiates? You really think some High School classes would cause people not misusing them?

medical topics:
Anatomy and Physiology - the body and how it functions
This is worthy of study in high school but not as indepth as college level classes.

Pathology - how disese affects the body
I don't see the need for this class in high school but it may be worth it for advanced high school students.

Kinetics - movement of the body
I guess a hs student with a backround in physics and A&P could study this.

Pharmacology - the study of how substances interact with living organisms to produce a change in function
If you want to focus on medications this class can be taught to hs students who have taken A&P and Chemistry

Human Nutrion, Human Sexuality, psychology and abnormal psych should all have a place in hs.

I took my emergency medical technician class as a hs senior.

Dabljuh said:

Consider every case of drug overdose, of drug mismatch, and otherwise "irresponsible" drug use, medical and recreational, that could be avoided by additional education. Enough evidence?

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In Sweden you get an information sheet with every pack of medicine you buy. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I imagine it's the same in many countries. There you can read about your medicine, how to take it (ie with food,with at least a half glass of water and so on) possible side effects, possible interactions - all you need to know. If you read the information. Here's the problem: most people don't. They take the pill or whatever every morning or whatever the doctor said. Or perhaps not, they may take two because they don't think one is enough, or not take them for some days because they get a stomach ache .

You know the old proverb: You can lead your horse to the water but not force it to drink.

Dabljuh said:

Medicine should be taught in schools. Drugs should no longer require a prescription.

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How many semester-hours should be devoted to this topic?
ETA: Will these classes include how to draw blood, how to do a blood cell count, how to culture a bacteria, and the dozens of other things necessary to reliably produce an accurate diagnosis?

Teaching medicine would help alleviate health costs and increase the health of a population. Free drug trade is a the only way to avoid the black market - which does not benefit anyone.

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Are there any countries where this approach has been successfully used?

Ummm, medical school is not easy. My mother in law used to teach pharmacology, and many people fail.

Life is dangerous enough. This would be disastrous.

Why not teach architecture and structural engineering in high school? Let any HS grad design bridges and sky scrapers!

Dabljuh said:

Another thread was sidetracking, so I start this thread now.

Medicine should be taught in schools. Drugs should no longer require a prescription.

Why?

Teaching medicine would help alleviate health costs and increase the health of a population. Free drug trade is a the only way to avoid a black market, that does not benefit anyone.

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Calculus and organic chemistry are prerequisites. These are 2nd year programs.

A highschool student is nowhere near ready to tackle even the basics.

My colleagues took mechanics in highschool - I would never let those jokers near my car. And mechanics is a lot easier than medicine.

Deregulation of prescribing will simply increase the influence of distorting advertising, and take power away from individuals and voters and into the hands of shareholders. Remember: that's the way it used to be.

The history of medical regulation is written in gravestones.

Miss Anthrope said:

Why not teach architecture and structural engineering in high school? Let any HS grad design bridges and sky scrapers!

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There are movements for this, too, actually.

A few years ago the BCSkeptics interviewed a chap who wanted to eliminate the 'red tape rules' surrounding construction project tenders. The law is that applicants must have a construction engineer approve the plans. Our correspondent felt this was racketeering.

His proposal was to build highway and rail bridges out of bamboo. If they became weak, it was because of bad vibes, but that was OK: he'd strengthen them up with pyramid and crystal power from time to time.

Katana said:

Do you have evidence:

1) that teaching basic pharmacology to high school students would result in FEWER "drug-related" disasters?

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No. This is my hypothesis, which remains to be tested. It is up to you to consider the worthiness of my hypothesis, in absence of high-quality studies ("evidence" that would be acceptable) on the subject.

2) that "scientifically-unsound scare tactics" are being used w/r to cocaine education?

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Not at hand. In general, narcotics are often vilified far beyond scientific accuracy. Not only cocaine, but also heroin, (opiates serve as pain killers) marijuana (ever heard of "reefer madness"? look it up) and other illegal drugs. Legal remedies, on the other hand, are glorified. Of course there is also certain elements, e.g. books and movies that glorify narcotics, but these aren't taught at schools.

3) of the existence of mandatory Ritalin prescriptions?

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Yes. I know of a case in 1999 where a court ordered parents to give ritalin to their children. Also, there is significant pressure from schools on parents to give their "ADD child" the drug, threatening to otherwise kick the kid out of school for its bad behaviour.

Dabljuh said:

I claim that teaching basic pharmacology would result in LESS drug-related disasters than the way we handle it now. I.e. scientifically unsound scare-tactics about the dangers of cocaine on the one side, but mandatory ritalin prescriptions on the other.

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Why would it? You think cocaine is safer than ritalin? I think you have a skewed perspective on what is the standard of medicine. Forcing a child to take ritalin is not part of medicine. That would be school policy or the parents choice. I also think scare tactics never worked and don't work (very often). In addition that is government policy and not medicine. Kids who are smart enough will figure out it's a lie and kids who are dumb enough will just ignore it. To replace science and accountability in such a way you would have willy nilly drug use and no accountability.

I think "how to recognize when someone is feeding you a load of bull" should be taught in high school.

That, or spinning (per Ghandi).

Linda

Dabljuh said:

Yes medicine is a rather broad topic. I'm thinking of

- The normal function of the human body (this often gets overlooked. You can't tell what's wrong when you don't know what's normal and benign)
- Conditions, such as hereditary, infectious etc
- Treatment, drugs, safety etc
- Living healthy, nutrition, how not to catch a cold etc
- Theoretical Science, how good studies differ from bad ones, what to look out for in Pharmaceutical Marketing etc
- You know, what *you* think every person should know about "medicine"

What the subject of the new "medicine" classes should be, may also be discussed here.

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Even those topics are broad. The first item is 'the normal function of the human body'. This is not medicine, but physiology, which is a dedicated department of its own in any university. There's a four-year batchelor's, also masters and doctorates, with increasing focus.

In principle, there's nothing wrong with your suggestion that people learn more about their bodies. I support this. However, this does not translate into the non sequitir about dropping certification as a requirement for writing prescriptions.

The discussion really is about the depth of discussion, and the appropriateness for the existing knowledge.

Again: I teach first aid. The majority of teens can't take a pulse correctly for trying. In comparison, palpating an abdomen is much, much, more difficult, and requires a history of a range of patients in order to get a grasp of what is a 'normal' sounding for an adult, senior, child, pregnant... This is a pretty common diagnostic technique, and takes about two years of regular exposure to master competently. And even then, the error rate is so high that the findings of a med student would be confirmed by staff before diagnosis was signed off.

In addition to physical diagnosis, in order to understand pharmacology reasonably you need to learn some chemistry, organic chemistry, physiology, biochemistry, mathematics and microbiology. This is really not a feasible thing in high school.

So, which grade shall we start a full course of Organic Chemistry with? I say 8th grade at the latest.

eir_de_scania said:

Yes, and when adults are told this by their doctor they still want her/him to make an exception in their case. Perhaps the students will nod and agree, but I wonder what they will do next time they get tonsillitis.

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"Make an exception" - They think antibiotics-resistant strains is a problem only on the scale of civilization. But that's not the case, they have to be made aware that their personal, own bacteria are going to be antibiotica-resistant, not anybody elses. *They*, and at the very best their loved ones, are going to pay the price if they use AB lightheartedly. Its their decision, leave people their freedom. Besides, tonsillitis is pretty serious. I recommend gargling sage tea.

And that's just antibiotics. What about tranquillizers? Opiates? You really think some High School classes would cause people not misusing them?

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Do you think no one misuses them right now? Outlawing the drugs causes more problems than it solves.

Ladewig said:

How many semester-hours should be devoted to this topic?

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No idea.

ETA: Will these classes include how to draw blood, how to do a blood cell count, how to culture a bacteria, and the dozens of other things necessary to reliably produce an accurate diagnosis?

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You have to be able to tell educative measures and the "trained and certified to do" apart from each other. They don't need to be able to do any of these things in my opinion, but if it helps their education, it shouldn't be banned from the classrooms either. Did you never blow something up in chemistry in school? That doesn't mean you now know how to blow stuff up.

Are there any countries where this approach has been successfully used?

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Not to my knowledge

Miss Anthrope said:

Why not teach architecture and structural engineering in high school? Let any HS grad design bridges and sky scrapers!

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Because medical literacy is required to keep your own butt alive. Building skyscrapers is something that only very few people need to be competent at, and that conversely, endangers also very many people.

blutoski said:

Calculus and organic chemistry are prerequisites. These are 2nd year programs. A highschool student is nowhere near ready to tackle even the basics.

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Basic medicine? "If you have a cold, stay in bed" ? I think we need medicine in elementary school, actually. How the human body functions, how to treat basic conditions, nutrition, whatever else is not something you need a doctorate in molecular biology in to understand, dammit.

My colleagues took mechanics in highschool - I would never let those jokers near my car. And mechanics is a lot easier than medicine.

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Funny, I think medicine is a lot easier than mechanics or engineering. Because "health" automagically works on its own most of the time, while you need to build all those damn machines from scratch.

Dogdoctor said:

Why would it? You think cocaine is safer than ritalin?

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If the FDA's classification is any indication, its about the same.

there is nothing wrong with teaching medical education to high schoolers. Medical education itself does not mean they will be doctors or any other type of clinician. There is no reason why student can not learn A&P, first aid, CPR, sex ed, nutrion before graduation. They aren't going to be performing surgery.

Anyway I was an certified EMT working on an ambulance before I had a hs diploma.

Dabljuh,

I have real problem with legalizing all medications to be used by people as they please, and history backs me up on this. Lets take one example: morphine.

When it was legally available (in the states), its abuse was rampant. Drug companies would sell cure-all elixers whose active ingrediants were nothing but morphine! People would take it for anything and everything. We have history to tell us, that legalizing this powerful drug is a bad idea, in fact criminally stupid.

The FDA classifies topical cocaine (as a topical anesthetic) the same as ritalin due to it's probability of abuse if it gets in the wrong hands.

Normal Dude said:

Dabljuh,

I have real problem with legalizing all medications to be used by people as they please, and history backs me up on this. Lets take one example: morphine.

When it was legally available (in the states), its abuse was rampant. Drug companies would sell cure-all elixers whose active ingrediants were nothing but morphine! People would take it for anything and everything. We have history to tell us, that legalizing this powerful drug is a bad idea, in fact criminally stupid.

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Yet we have 100s of legal pain killers, and alcohol (also used this way) is still legal, and abuse is rampant. Did civilization collapse when morphine was legal? And again: Making stuff illegal doesn't keep people from taking the dope. It just makes sure that only the mafia reaps the profits.

Hey, What you need is a gramme of soma.

Funny, I think medicine is a lot easier than mechanics or engineering. Because "health" automagically works on its own most of the time, while you need to build all those damn machines from scratch.

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If this is your belief then why bother with drugs?

Dabljuh said:

Yes medicine is a rather broad topic. I'm thinking of

- The normal function of the human body (this often gets overlooked. You can't tell what's wrong when you don't know what's normal and benign)

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Huh? This forms the basis of most biology courses I know of. While I'm only familiar with the board curricula in a few US states, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia (I'm only familiar with these systems so can't comment on others, but I'd suspect most countries are similar), all of these go into quite a bit of detail on the normal functioning of the human body systems.

- Conditions, such as hereditary, infectious etc

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See above.

- Treatment, drugs, safety etc

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The school I currently teach in has complete units on this. Most schools I've taught in have drug and alcohol safety units and/or courses.

- Living healthy, nutrition, how not to catch a cold etc

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Again, this is in most school curricula.

- Theoretical Science, how good studies differ from bad ones, what to look out for in Pharmaceutical Marketing etc

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Yup. I agree that this was poorly phrased in the last GCSE and SATs courses in the UK, but their last revision attempted to address this. In Australian states it forms the very basis of the curriculum. In fact, in my current school it forms the foundation of all science classes.

What the subject of the new "medicine" classes should be, may also be discussed here.

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There might be systems in the world that don't address these. My feeling is that they are in the minority. Which school system are you referring to which doesn't have any of the above? I'm curious.

Whether educators teach it adequately is another issue altogether, and one I'll venture to say does need to be fixed. This is an inherent problem with education in general, though.

I agree with your sentiments, but have to inform you that if you're suggesting we need to include 'medicine' in the curriculum, in the form you suggest it already exists there.

Athon

Dabljuh,

I don't think you understand the complexities of pharmacology. My sister is a pharmacist, and it is way more in depth than just knowing what pills treat what. Also consider a HS students schedule, they aren't going to be learning about 'medicine' their entire time, maybe an hour and a half a day at most. Even if all the HS student did was learn about 'medicine', they still wouldn't have a clue in reality.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.



ETA: If the general public was allowed to self prescribe, I'd put all of my money in Vikodin stock.

athon said:

I agree with your sentiments, but have to inform you that if you're suggesting we need to include 'medicine' in the curriculum, in the form you suggest it already exists there.

Athon

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That you are correct is irrelevant. The point of this thread was not to discuss the issue, but to provide an outlet for marketing the "big-bad-medical-industrial-complex" idea that snake-oil salespeople depend upon. It is not possible for them to look good on their own merits, after all.

Have we already forgotten the lesson learned in this thread?

Linda

Teaching the mechanism behind the action of AZT to school kids would be interesting since they would need to understand organic chemistry certianb areas of biochemistry and cell metabolism to quite a high level.

Some of the gentic dissorders would be even more complex.

As for proper functioning of the body the action of metal centred enzymes could be the topic for an entire module at degree level.

fls said:

That you are correct is irrelevant. The point of this thread was not to discuss the issue, but to provide an outlet for marketing the "big-bad-medical-industrial-complex" idea that snake-oil salespeople depend upon. It is not possible for them to look good on their own merits, after all.

Have we already forgotten the lesson learned in this thread?

Linda

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I'm not with you, sorry. The point of this thread was to discuss whether education should focus on 'medical' issues, right? I'm arguing it already does.

Athon

Dabljuh said:

Medicine should be taught in schools.

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Absolutely!

I have always thought how STUPID it's not,...er, at least wasn't when I was in school.

To get sick, hurt, die needlessly from lack of basic knowledge is rather stupid, if you learn technical stuff, only to get hurt or die ahead of time because you were never schooled in some of those things which cause people to have to go to emergency rooms or cause problems in their life that shouldn't have happened (therby needlessly running up health care/insurance costs also!) if they had some knowledge.

They need to look at all doctor/emergency visits and then list things/subjects that may be nice to cover. It has to be very selective as to not overwhelm and be forgotten. Better to say less and repeat thru the course, than to say too much only one time, if it will just be forgotten after graduation. Or better, medicine class should maybe be taught every year.

Wouldn't it be nice for them to cover basic first aid and even teach how to stop an arterial bleed? Practicing the Heimlich maneuver. Practicing CPR.

What can wear out joints/cartlidge prematurely. What sports likely can cause knee injuries and rotator cuff injuries and exactly why these happen?

Identifying early signs of skin cancers and pictures of the different types. Telling redheads they are more prone.

Explaining differences between the common cold and flu and what to do for each and when to concern yourself that maybe you have neither but something more serious in need of attention (like Leukemia! Ever hear of all the people going to the doctor for "flu" only to be told they have leukemia?)

Proper dental health.

Awareness of CO poisoning and symptoms, and to be vigilant in certain circumstances about this. (Why get your PH.D., if you are going to overlook the trailer exhaust pointing toward your tent at a music event and die? This happened up here recently). Lead poisoning.

Tips on all sorts of things: Like making sure you don't let storm doors slam on your heel behind you and sever your archilles tendon.) How not to drink grapefruit juice with certain meds.

Nutrition and what role certain nutrients play and what we know now how simply mega-dosing on one nutrient really requires combinations of interactions between other nutrients to be effective. What women need to avoid certain women maladies, and nutritional advice during pregnancy and things to avoid.

The importance of knowing if you are diabetic and what commonly happens to diabetics that don't ususally occur as often in other people.

Diseases that affect black people more.

Lymes disease symptoms and pictures of the rash. Poison ivy. And other things one can stumble on in the outdoors. The probably of rabies/bats. What causes tetonis, why and where and what to do. Jelly fish while swimming in Gulf/ocean.

..............

I could go on and on. I am old enough that I feel NOW I have learned a lot and become a half a doctor just from what I've learned over the years. But one really should not have to go all thru life learning these things thru bad experience first or die first, and it should be taught so you know a lot when you are young.

[rant on]

You'll notice how few people make comments like 'mechanics really should check the oil in your car. Travesty how they don't - should be common practice', or 'doctors should be able to do surgery. It's a travesty how in modern medicine trained doctors can't cut stuff out of you'.

So why do people profess to be experts in education without having anything more than their own personal experience? Nobody walks out of a doctor's surgery knowing how medicine works, or way from the mechanic comfortable they can fix most types of car.

Knowing a little about you're talking about makes a good start for a discussion

[/rant off]

Athon

Dabljuh said:

Basic medicine? "If you have a cold, stay in bed" ? I think we need medicine in elementary school, actually. How the human body functions, how to treat basic conditions, nutrition, whatever else is not something you need a doctorate in molecular biology in to understand, dammit.

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You're changing your claim, now. First, you said we should teach medicine. Then, it was maybe just first aid and physiology or something. Now your suggestions sound like basic hygene. Here's news: we teach hygene in school.

As an example, here in BC, the provincial ministry of health distributes a health guide to every household in the province, in three languages. Its content is covered in every year of K-12. As I also mentioned, in BC, first aid is a mandatory course in highschool. It used to be Industrial First Aid, but now I think it's the St. John's Ambulance Basic First Aid module, plus CPR-C level (for babysitters, basically).

This is 200-pages of 'the basics,' and I'm not sure why you think it's necessary to delve much deeper.

Dabljuh said:

Funny, I think medicine is a lot easier than mechanics or engineering. Because "health" automagically works on its own most of the time, while you need to build all those damn machines from scratch.

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As an ex-mechanic married to a doctor: you're completely wrong. The body has more moving parts, and the manufacturer didn't give us a manual.