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Right-angle thought...in Heinlein's last novel, he had a scene where a veterinarian participated in emergency battle surgery. (Even had the guy use his own surgical instruments.) I was a little dubious at the idea...I suppose many skills would be applicable, so a vet (or veterinarian surgeon) would be able to perform some emergency surgery in a pinch...I don't know how far those skills would extend.
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Of course, if she's banking on herbal medicine she'd better stock up on a couple field guides and possibly make a trip to a botanical garden or nursery! Depending on where she is, many medicinal plants won't be growing out in the wild.
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Just to clarify my post, I wasn't trying to say your doctor shouldn't bring ANY aspirin, etc. Of course she's going to take some. But if you're concerned about LONG-term... if you're going to ransack a hospital / pharmacy and take absolutely everything they have of X drug, that's when my fiance said antibiotics.
There are many natural remedies for things that aspirin cure. Herbal teas, etc. Things in the wild that, after a learning curve, could be used as a decent proxy. It's the drugs that cannot be easily reproduced with herbal medicine from indigenous plants that should be stockpiled to no end, cases and cases, thousands of pills not hundreds.
And more common antibiotics (penicillin is a prime example) have been used and overused the the point that its potencty in the current world has gone down by a lot. This was the comment she/I made about taking as much as possible of EVERY current "class" of wide-spectrum antibiotic. That way you can use the "penicillin derivative" drugs like amoxicillin, etc. but if the bacteria become too immune to that class you can switch over to the next class.
But certainly there will be a learning curve period where your doctor will have to read and study the herbal medicine books she's snatched, and will want a steady supply (enough for a few months? a year?) of more common drugs. A year's supply of aspirin, etc. isn't going to take that much space (a year's supply for one person anyway). The other reason to stock up on antibiotics to such an extent also goes beyond one person's need for them. (How often do you require antibiotics? Once a year at most, on average?) But if there are any other survivors that this doctor finds, or expects to find, if she ends up in a small community of survivors, you have to think about everyone. The point of raiding a pharmacy / a few pharmacies / a hospital is to serve as "post-apocolyptic" doctor for an entire community, I would think.
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Yes, certainly she will take all of the antibiotics she can. In fact, they will be rather important later in the story as the community's (yes, she is assuming she will care for others) most valuable assets to be used very carefully and guarded from others who covet them.
HOwever, if you think the hospitals after Katrina except somewhat worse you will see the problems she will have. It won't be easy to find what she needs and most supplies will have been destroyed. But I do need to know what she would look for and your help is greatly appreciated.
She will have a steep learning curve. She isn't trained for this kind of medicine but she can learn. And of course she has to plan for the possibility/probability that she will have to train any future doctors for her community.
This story has grown from what I originally envisioned. It's nice when one takes on a life of its own.
Why didn't the crusty old country doctor "uncle" who inspired your protagonist to become a doctor when she was a young girl have a copy of this stuff in his library? Why didn't she read these materials when she was a kid? And why doesn't she break into his widow's abandoned house to get them? It might make some good backstory, too.
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