Many of us have heard of the use of SuperGlue as a liquid dressing/ersatz stitching. Allevyn and Duoderm have similar products and all can last for several days in place if need be.

Not all burns come from fire вЂ“ think about putting your hand on a hot exhaust pipe or having a line run through your ungloved hand at a high rate of speed. Such a product would be Band-AidвЂ™s Advanced Healing Blister Cushion. These are fine for cuts and punctures, but if you have blistering on your hands from a burn of some type, youвЂ™ll need something that has medical product directly integrated into the dressing, and still breathes too. These new Band-Aids, and 3MвЂ™s вЂњNexCare,вЂќ are roughly twice as expensive but worth every penny in healing and prevention from infection. Wounds need that in order to stay clean and yet be warm and moist enough to promote circulation and healing. There is a semi-permeable membrane over sterile gauze, which makes them waterproof and breathable. When someone wants to say that something hasnвЂ™t really been fixed, they often say, вЂњJust put a Band-Aid over it.вЂќ Band-Aid, which is a brand name, realized that they could do better themselves and the new waterproof Band-Aids, on the market now for a few years, are dramatically better than the old version. This column is about the advances sinceвЂ¦ вЂњIt is just a Band-AidвЂќ I was crewing with a new captain for the first time and, when the Chief Medical Officer Marty Boorstein grabbed the scotch because there was no alcohol in the medical kit, I started to worry that more was at work here than Alberto. Of course, it didnвЂ™t do wonders for the side of my head.

Catching the side of my head on a brass runner, I managed not to be thrown below at a high rate of speed. By Vincent Pica, Commodore, First District, Southern Region (D1SR), United States Coast Guard AuxiliaryДЄbout 35 years ago, while trying to sail out of Hurricane AlbertoвЂ™s way in the North Atlantic, a rogue wave hit us and I went airborne.

Dr skipper