This is also combined with a sort of frontier setting where although the civilization has fabulous medical technology, maybe the main characters won't have access to it all being that they are on a frontier colony where everything has to be shipped in. And I need to know where the logical places to cut corners are in care, treatment etc.... I can think of some, but I want to know about what I haven't though of. If you get my drift.

Any ideas where I could do research? Other fiction books, internet sites etc...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/moonandmars/med.html

That's one link. There might be others (NASA have a complex network of websites) -- try a search on nasa mdical reserch.

Or maybe search medical university websites.

The first one is instead of using a crash cart and CPR for recessitation they will use cooling blankets and lower the blood temperature (under careful control). They are already doing this for some heart attack victims with great results.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/health/9017175/detail.html

I think this will replace CPR in the next ten years.

Also, I think serious bleeding will be treated by freeze dried clotting agents. They use this now for people with certain types of hemophilia (coagulation therapy). I can see in the future rubbing a little dried clotting agents on a cut to stop the bleeding instead of using bandages.

This one is a long shot, but scientists are working on antisense or interference RNA (iRNA) as a drug. This would be amazing if they can get it to work with the potential of treating any bacterial or viral infection as well as cancer.

The theory behind it is that you can target any gene in any orgainism and shut it down post-transcription by delivering an RNA strand that is complimentary to the messanger RNA (mRNA) strand. This prevents the mRNA from making its specific protein. So if you shut down the production of an essential protein, the cell or virus will essentially die.

Another important change in medicine that is coming is that we will be able to screen our genes for any inherited disorders or predispositions for certain diseases. So essentially in the future at birth you will know if you will have heart disease, alzhiemers, certain cancers, etc. Because of this, I think that medicine will shift to more preventative care. If you want more info on this google the human genome project.

If any of these ideas seem interesting, you can google with the key words and I am sure you can find a lot of information on them.