Trousse d'urgence en médecine générale

In general practice, no ideal emergency pack exists. The aim of the present article is essentially to propose some recommendations for the constitution of an emergency pack to be used by general practitioners (GPs) (recommendations not suitable for emergency doctors). First, we underline the difficulties associated with the elaboration of a standardized pack; these difficulties are due to the various ways of practicing primary care, in relation with the GPs themselves and their environment. The second part of the article presents the basic principles for the elaboration of the GP emergency pack: how to select the drugs, how to organize them, how to keep them, the importance of a check-list, etc. Tables list the required administrative, diagnostic and therapeutic materials. Diagnostic and therapeutic tools are distributed according to their specificity: necessary, useful, or adapted either to rural or emergency practices. The third part summarizes the essential drugs, together with their dosage, some of their specificities and a proposition for alternative drugs. This is a long but non exhaustive list and GPs will select the therapeutic tools that they consider the most suitable for their own practice.