Class/briefing for teaching tactical combat casualty care. It has 20 slides, some with notes. Ninety percent of combat wound fatalities die on the battlefield before reaching a medical treatment facility. This fact of war emphasizes the need for continued improvement in combat prehospital care. Trauma care training for military medics has been based primarily on the principles taught in the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course. ATLS provides a standardized approach to the management of trauma that has proven very successful when used in the setting of a hospital emergency department. The value of at least some aspects of ATLS in the prehospital setting, however, has been questioned, even in the civilian sector. Military authors have voiced additional concerns about the applicability of ATLS in the combat setting. Mitigating factors such as darkness, hostile fire, resource limitations, prolonged evacuation times, unique battlefield casualty transportation issues, command and tactical decisions affecting healthcare, hostile environments, and provider experience levels pose constraints different from the hospital emergency department. These differences are profound, and must be carefully reviewed when trauma management strategies are modified for combat application.
NOTE: This document is in MS PowerPoint
