Combat Docs Need to Be Ready For Next War

The plan to keep military combat docs ready for America's next war
Medill News Service
Ruojing Liu
July 16, 2016

According to the report, trauma deaths of about 1,000 service members in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts between 2001 and 2011 could have been prevented with more proficient trauma care. About 20 percent of civilian deaths from serious injuries at home in 2014 could have been prevented as well.

Soldiers from the 5-20 Infantry Division carry a comrade onto a stretcher after he was wounded in a mortar blast on the outskirts of Baghdad in 2007.

(Photo: David Furst/AFP/Getty Images)

About 1,000 mortally wounded troops a year could have been saved in a decade of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan if more military doctors had been more skilled in trauma care, a top medical organization reports, A proposal under consideration on Capitol Hill is directed at ensuring that military doctors gain and maintain proficiency in those skills by working with civilian trauma centers.

The proposal calls for grants for civilian trauma centers to hire military doctors and staff.

The idea would be to use military medical professionals in the civilian trauma system so both sides could share information about treating patients in life-or-death situations.
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