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Medical Education and Demonstration of Individual Competence:
Repost from Next Generation Combat Medic: The new version of TC 8-800 cuts out nearly 100 pages to distill a clear message for medics, NCOs, and officers: train to the modern standard of medicine.
The TC clearly orders the training priorities:
1. TCCC - While trauma is only a small percentage of the patients we will treat, it constitutes the most deaths.
2. LPC - Because we do limited primary care and force health protection as the majority of our work.
3. PCC (PFC) - Because this is an ongoing and likely increasing operational problem that we WILL encounter despite our best planning.
4. CLS training - Because a high-functioning casualty response system is the only way to get to zero preventable deaths.
Combat Medics (and Corpsmen) have a large skillset that overlaps with the NREMT EMT and Advanced EMT scope of education. But an NREMT refresher course is grossly insufficient to ensure medics are ready for the battlefield.
Training must be consistent throughout the year. You wouldn't fly with a pilot who hasn't kept up their flight hours. You wouldn't deploy with a Soldier who only does PT two weeks a year. Don't allow medics to stagnate except for an annual refresher.
Medical training isn't just "doing tables". There is a clear progression from building knowledge, applying that knowledge to skills, and applying those skills to scenarios. Building your training plans to produce optimal outcomes.
Speaking of CLS, if you aren't including your CLS in medical training and casualty scenarios during unit training, you are setting them and yourself up to fail.
The new TC makes it clear that while the Army produces a variety of training support packages, you should be aggressively pursuing additional sources of up-to-date information from valid sources.
What additional sources do you use for training?
Our enduring imperative
A Catch-22 Is Keeping Telemedicine Off the Battlefield
Saving lives on the battlefield should motivate all military leaders to think creatively and pursue innovative and flexible solutions. This Defense One article outlines a few of the obstacles to defining the requirement for battlefield telemedicine as well as the reasons the idea must be pursued.
Obstacles:
- Perception that telemedicine is dependent upon large bandwidth requirements
- No doctrinal requirement.
- Little incorporation into large exercises.
- Adversaries are getting better at electronic warfare.
Battlefield Telemedicine Realities:
- Solutions exist today.
- While more bandwidth expands options, effective telemedicine requires little bandwidth (voice and compressed pictures).
- Telemedicine teams have already demonstrated its value and real-world success.
- Current and future wars will likely be fought with greater dispersion, risk of isolation, and limited air superiority requiring front-line medical practitioners to operate more independently.
What obstacles do you foresee? What opportunities can you imagine?
How have you, or how can you, work telemedicine into your training and operational missions today?
Telemedicine is part of current and future win-sets for battlefield medicine. What is your PACE plan for use?
Read the entire article at:
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/07/catch-22-keeping-telemedicine-battlefield/183025/
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) sent congress the classified version of the National Defense Strategy (NDS) yesterday and provided an unclassified outline. This replaces the last NDS published in 2018 and provides the strategic roadmap for the department across the competition continuum.
The Defense priorities are:
1. Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC
2. Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, Allies, and partners
3. Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary, prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe
4. Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem.
The Department will advance our goals through three primary ways: integrated deterrence, campaigning, and actions that build enduring advantages.
• Integrated deterrence entails developing and combining our strengths to maximum effect, by working seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, other instruments of U.S. national power, and our unmatched network of Alliances and partnerships. Integrated deterrence is enabled by combat-credible forces, backstopped by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent.
• Campaigning will strengthen deterrence and enable us to gain advantages against the full range of competitors’ coercive actions. The United States will operate forces, synchronize broader Department efforts, and align Department activities with other instruments of national power, to undermine acute forms of competitor coercion, complicate competitors’ military preparations, and develop our own warfighting capabilities together with Allies and partners.
• Building enduring advantages for the future Joint Force involves undertaking reforms to accelerate force development, getting the technology we need more quickly, and making investments in the extraordinary people of the Department, who remain our most valuable resource.
The news release can be found here:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2980584/dod-transmits-2022-national-defense-strategy/
General Colin Powell’s Rules:
1. It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
2. Get mad, then get over it.
3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
4. It can be done!
5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it.
6. Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
7. You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.
8. Check small things.
9. Share credit.
10. Remain calm. Be kind.
11. Have a vision. Be demanding.
12. Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
Improving Casualty Evacuation for our next Decisive Action Fight
U.S. Army Casualty Evacuation (CASEVAC) skills have atrophied. After almost 20 years of overlapping Air Medical Evacuation (MEDEVAC) rings, many leaders have neglected training the movement from point of injury to the Casualty Collection Point (CCP). Trends at National Training Center/Fort Irwin have demonstrated an 49% died of wounds (DoW) rate. While a decisive action (DA) fight will produce more casualties than we have seen in recent wars, this rate is astronomical. This article by David Draper addresses trends, reviews doctrine, and provides tips to improve CASEVAC in a DA fight.
CASEVAC TECHNIQUES THAT WORK:
- The 1SG must supervise the CASEVAC plan.
- Designate CASEVAC vehicles with litters, litter straps, and Combat Life Saver (CLS) equipment and stage them with medics and CLS at the CCP.
- Quickly push or pull casualties to the CCP using dedicated aid and litter teams.
- Use a CASEVAC/MEDEVAC concept sketch to create shared understanding.
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR UNITS:
- Conduct CASEVAC training as part of unit training plans.
- Establish company and battalion CASEVAC SOPs.
- Incorporate CASEVAC into all training: PT, gunnery, live-fire, situational training exercise (STX), and field training exercise (FTX).
A 49-percent average DoW rate for urgent and priority patients, as observed at NTC, is not acceptable. Invest in training CLS, CASEVAC, and MEDEVAC skills to reduce preventable deaths.
What TTPs have you found to be successful? What more current trends are coming out of JRTC, JMRC, and NTC?
Read the whole article here:
https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2017/Fall/4Draper17.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1w4nR4GPSUHYq6VnDTNYGwmCg4NfRewFwGIk5RX6PEyCJ5b31rzvCefYc
1st Medical Brigade 30th Medical Brigade 44th Medical Brigade 62nd Medical Brigade 65th Medical Brigade Army Medicine Medical Service Corps Chief U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence Combined Arms Center JRTC and Fort Polk Next Generation Combat Medic
Back to the Future: Next Generation Forest Brothers
The Forest Brothers refers to the organized armed fight in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania during World War II. Their story is fairly well known, having been covered in multiple movies and books; however, it seems worthwhile to consider today given the resistance occurring during today's war in .
I encourage you to read through the Small Wars Journal article describing the Forest Brothers and to download TC 18-09 Medical Support to Resistance (behind CAC wall).
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/back-future-next-generation-forest-brothers
https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_c/pdf/web/ARN16918_TC%2018-09_FINAL_WEB.pdf
Operational Medicine Special Warfare Operational Medicine Squadron Journal of Special Operations Medicine Tactical Medic 1st Medical Brigade 30th Medical Brigade 44th Medical Brigade 62nd Medical Brigade 65th Medical Brigade Medical Service Corps Chief U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence
TEAMWORK
“No matter what kind of situation you face, remember that your responsibilities to people come in the following order: to the organization, to the team, and then to the individual. Your own interests — and comfort — come last.”
John C. Maxwell, “The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork”
Changes to the ACFT:
The Army is indeed implementing the test in April this year, and because of RAND’s study there are a few things to make note of — among them is the way the test will be scored.
The Army originally hailed the test as age- and gender-neutral, and scored according to a soldier’s military occupational specialty.
None of that is going to be included moving forward.
Now, soldiers will be scored on a scale that takes into account age and gender. For example, 25-year-old men and women will get the required minimum of 60 points for the hand-release pushups if they complete 10 pushups. A female soldier taking the test would receive 100 points if she did 50 pushups, while the male soldier would receive 100 points if he did 61.
The test moving forward will include hand-release pushups, a two-mile run — which SMA Grinston said is the most-failed event — the sprint-drag-carry, overhead power throw, and deadlift, and the plank which is permanently replacing the leg tuck.
Read the entire article at:
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-combat-fitness-test-rand-study/?fbclid=IwAR3-t3sL-la5quhdZ3H_k-QTvcnvMXwAzqq1BlJETVSNYyxLeaDV4gn45cM
