Triage of American Combat Casualties: The Need for Change

United States military medical planning must reevaluate the practices of combat casualty resuscitation, transportation, and triage to secondary echelon care. Analysis of the experiences of other medical commands, such as that of the Israeli Defense Force, offers insight into improvements in equipment and training that are achievable with minimal cost. Training programs must involve formal instruction in Advanced Trauma Life Support for the combat corpsman, and ongoing experience in trauma surgery for personnel who are placed in the role of military surgeons. Today in military medicine there exists a major deficiency of expertise in trauma care, arising through a near total lack of involvement in active trauma surgery on the part of military medical training facilities. Civilian trauma centers offer an abundance of opportunity for military-like casualty management, and successful efforts at our command have integrated active duty personnel into this experience.