The Case for Penlights in the Medical Kit

Disclaimer.  I am not a licensed health practitioner.  This is just another post on an item you might wish to have available if needed so that a physician can treat you and your family as best as possible.  No medication, including those available over the counter, should be taken without consulting a physician.  Information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only.  It is not medical advice nor a substitute for licensed medical care.  A qualified, licensed physician or other medical provider should be consulted before beginning any herbal or conventional treatment.

A penlight is one of those really nice-to-have tools in the medical kit. The world probably won't come to an end without one (oh yeah, if you're really using the medical equipment, then that probably already happened), but it can sure make life a bit easier.

On TV, doctors and EMTs use penlights for the usual stuff, like checking pupils for drug use or concussion. With drug use, the pupils are going to be widely dilated, especially with marijuana. For concussion patients, medical personnel are looking to see if the pupils are equally reactive--if they dilate at the same speed and to the same extent. However, one item to note: about ten percent of the population has pupils that normally differ in size. If this applies to you or your family, make sure anyone attending to you or them knows this. It should also be very clearly stated on the top page of your medical records.

Penlights for checking pupils are a much lower intensity than other penlights. You don't want to hurt or blind the patient when checking his pupils.

For convenience when checking patients, some penlights have a pupil gauge and a ruler.

Penlights are also used for more easily monitoring how wounds are healing. If the care provider can peek under the dressing without removing it, time and resources are conserved. Penlights allow patients to be checked on in the dark, without disturbing the patient's sleep. They're also helpful in checking in a patient's mouth or ears (though not as nice as an otoscope). And for looking for the ever-dreadful foreign-body-in-nose in your two-year-old.

Penlights ideal for medical use range in price from five to fifty dollars. And the expensive one works about the same as the cheap ones. It just doesn't hurt so much when the cheap ones get borrowed and broken or not returned. The cheaper ones usually are disposable, but the batteries can be changed in some. However, in the middle of the price range are some USB-rechargeable penlights. But you don't want to be tempted by these. A penlight for checking pupils, and not causing pain to the patient, needs to be low-intensity, under 15 lumens. But for checking wounds, throats, ears, and such, higher power is desired. So quite of few of the options have two power options. All these options to be considered can make choosing a penlight difficult.

But honestly, how many times are you really going to be using this light? Unless you're the medic for a larger group, probably not a whole lot. With the principle that two is one and one is none, maybe a couple pupil-checking lights are all you need, and they're really pretty inexpensive. If you've also got a good headlight, that can double for a light for checking ears and the throat and under bandages.
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