Medical knowledge gets overlooked in preparedness planning. Food storage, power, water, and comms all matter, but none of it helps when someone in your household is bleeding out, fighting an infection, or dealing with a broken bone two hours from the nearest hospital.
You can’t pull up YouTube when the power is out and the cell tower is down. You need printed references on your shelf. Three books cover the spectrum from acute wilderness emergencies to long-term grid-down medical care. Here’s what each one does and why it earns its spot.
In this post:
1. Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine by Paul S. Auerbach, 5th Edition
Dr. Paul Auerbach served as the Redlich Family Professor of Surgery in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and is recognized as the world’s leading authority on wilderness medicine. The Field Guide is the portable, condensed version of his comprehensive Wilderness Medicine textbook used by emergency physicians worldwide.
What it covers:
- High-altitude medicine
- Dive medicine and water-related emergencies
- Mountain medicine and wilderness survival
- Snake, insect, and animal injuries
- Plant and mushroom identification with color plates
- Bandaging and taping techniques
- Forest fires
- Hydration and dehydration
- Mental health in austere settings
- Global humanitarian and disaster medicine
- Travel medicine, immunizations, and medications
Format: Each chapter uses a “Signs and Symptoms” and “Treatment” structure with bulleted lists and quick-reference text boxes. The book is sized to fit in a glove compartment or pack. The emphasis throughout is on improvising care with whatever materials are available.
Best for: Anyone living rural, elevated, or remote enough that EMS response time exceeds 30 minutes. The clinical depth is the strongest of the three books on this list.
Books teach you what to do. This gets you what to do it with.
Get a stockpile of emergency antibiotics prescribed by a board-certified physician, delivered to your door. Pair it with the books above and you have a complete medical preparedness plan.
2. Where There Is No Doctor by David Werner, Carol Thuman, and Jane Maxwell
The World Health Organization considers this the most widely-used health care manual in the world. It has been translated into more than 75 languages. David Werner co-founded the Hesperian Foundation and has worked in over 50 countries on village health care, with consulting work for the WHO, UNICEF, UNDP, and the Peace Corps.
The book was written for communities with no access to formal medical care. That assumption is what makes it valuable for preppers.
What it covers:
- Examining sick people: checking breathing, pulse, temperature
- Identifying illness from symptoms and fever patterns
- Dehydration, cold and flu, asthma, allergic reactions, arthritis, back pain
- Serious diseases: malaria, tuberculosis, tetanus, dengue, typhoid
- Nutrition and diet
- Sanitation and disease prevention
- Vaccinations
- Appropriate use of medicines, including when not to use them
- Family planning and childbirth
- Care of children and the elderly
- Recognizing when a problem exceeds home care
Format: Plain language with extensive hand-drawn illustrations on nearly every page. Designed to be usable by people with limited literacy or limited English. The latest reprint (May 2025, 21st printing) includes updated information on antibiotics and revised medical guidance.
Best for: Foundational diagnostic skills and the philosophy of self-reliant health care. Addresses root causes (cleanliness, diet, prevention) rather than just treating symptoms. The illustrations make it usable by anyone in your household.
Books teach you what to do. This gets you what to do it with.
Get a stockpile of emergency antibiotics prescribed by a board-certified physician, delivered to your door. Pair it with the books above and you have a complete medical preparedness plan.
3. The Survival Medicine Handbook by Joe Alton, MD and Amy Alton, ARNP, 4th Edition
Joe Alton is a board-certified physician who practiced obstetrics and pelvic surgery for over 25 years before focusing full-time on medical preparedness. Amy Alton is an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner and Certified Nurse-Midwife. The 4th edition runs approximately 700 pages and previous editions have won the Book Excellence Awards in medicine three times (2017, 2020, 2022).
The book’s starting assumption is what separates it from the other two: a disaster has removed access to hospitals and doctors for the foreseeable future, and you are now the highest medical resource available to your family.
What it covers:
- Over 300 topics with more than 300 illustrations
- Trauma care and first aid
- Wound care, including suturing
- Infection management and antibiotic use
- Chronic disease management without a pharmacy (diabetes, hypertension, etc.)
- Performing a physical exam
- Dental emergencies
- Mental health crises
- Infectious disease outbreaks
- Integrative approaches combining modern medications with herbal and natural remedies
- Medical supply lists and kit-building
Format: Plain English written for non-medical professionals. Available in color, black-and-white, and spiral-bound editions.
Best for: Long-term grid-down scenarios. This is the only one of the three books that explicitly addresses managing chronic conditions and providing extended care when modern medical infrastructure is unavailable.
How the Three Books Work Together
They cover overlapping territory with different assumptions:
| Book | Core Assumption | Strongest Area |
|---|---|---|
| Auerbach | Temporary wilderness/remote setting | Clinical depth, acute emergencies |
| Werner | Rural setting, limited resources, help exists somewhere | Diagnostic skills, foundational health philosophy |
| Alton | Help is not coming, possibly for a long time | Long-term care, prepper-specific scenarios |
Read together, you cover the spectrum from acute wilderness emergencies through community-level rural health care to long-term grid-down medical preparedness.
A Few Notes Before You Buy
Books don’t replace training. Take a wilderness first aid course. Take a Stop the Bleed class. Get CPR certified. Books are reference material that supplement skills, not substitutes for them.
Buy print copies. When the power is out and your phone is dead, paper on the shelf is what works.
Read them before you need them. Mark the sections relevant to your environment, your family’s medical conditions, and your most likely scenarios.
Books teach you what to do. This gets you what to do it with.
Get a stockpile of emergency antibiotics prescribed by a board-certified physician, delivered to your door. Pair it with the books above and you have a complete medical preparedness plan.