What to carry depends on your skill and experience and where you expect to be. For example if I was cruising in countries with low levels of medical infrastructure and issues like AIDS such as
Africa I would defiantly include an intravenous kit, IV
ports etc as they may not have sterile supplies. Another issue on the same theme is time. If you are within helicopter range of an industrialized country with
VHF coverage you are hours from help. If you are in drakes
passage or rounding the horn you are days or even weeks from help. That makes a huge difference.
Think about what you are comfortable using. There is no point in carry supplies for procedures you would not be able to do. I carry what I need to set and splint a long bone fracture but it is not something you want to be
learning from the book while at sea so unless you have experience as a first responded there would be little point.
Be realistic a bout what you can do and carry. If someone has an MI severe enough to need drug therapy is there a realistic chance of survival? If not there is little point in including the meds.
What are you crews vulnerabilities. Age, fitness and preexisting conditions need consideration. An big adventurous young crew may want to carry meds for venereal disease, if you are a retired couple do you need to? Does someone have angina etc etc.
Event though I am a nurse (ret) I still looked for
advice on what to carry. best thing I found was the Ships Captains Medical book from the UK and the
med chest recommendations that go with it (available as a free download). I went though it and crossed off the
parts I definitely did not think relevant. The kit is what the UK coast Guard requires small
commercial craft to carry and is OTT for most leisure cruisers but it is fairly easy to see what you don't need. There is also a very good course that goes with it. The other thing is that it is linked to
radio support. If you are taking direction via
radio and tell them you have this kit then in many places they know exactly what is available and can guide you through using it. The US coast guard may have an equivalent.
Only problem I had with it is that the dug list is somewhat dated, when I saw a doctor to get the supplies (it includes prescription only meds) they suggested some alternative that are now considered better. When that happened I added a label to say what it had replaced.