Combat medic
Additionally, medics may also be responsible for the creation, oversight, and execution of long-term patient care plans in consultation with or in the absence of a readily available doctor or advanced practice provider.
They also learn how to manage airways and assist with minor surgical procedures setting up deployed medical facilities and treating casualties in an operational and CBRNE environment over the course of 47-48 weeks.
All military medical training in the United States takes place at Joint Base San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
Many programs are dedicated to and who provide preference for military medics transitioning into Paramedic, Registered Nurse (RN), and Physician Assistant (PA) educations.
The Battalion Aid Station (BAS)/Treatment Medics function similar to an urgent care/ small emergency department depending on size and resources.
Under the direction of the medical provider and team leaders or sergeants, they intake, triage, and stabilize or treat patients for transfer to another tier or discharge.
In the U.S. armed forces, service members in line units often refer to their assigned combat medic or hospital corpsman as "Doc."
In 1864, sixteen European states adopted the first-ever Geneva Convention to save lives and alleviate the suffering of wounded and sick persons in the battlefield, as well as to protect trained medical personnel as non-combatants, in the act of rendering aid.
Chapter IV, Article 25 of the Geneva Convention states that: "Members of the armed forces specially trained for employment, should the need arise, as hospital orderlies, nurses or auxiliary stretcher-bearers, in the search for or the collection, transport or treatment of the wounded and sick shall likewise be respected and protected if they are carrying out these duties at the time when they come into contact with the enemy or fall into his hands."
[7] In today's combat environment, many times non-conventional forces do not follow the Geneva Conventions, and actually deliberately target medical personnel identified by their equipment or insignia.
During the American Civil War, musicians had the double duty of acting as stretcher-bearers to move the wounded to field hospitals and assisting surgeons operating on patients.
Better known as "The White Paper" to emergency providers, it revealed that soldiers who were seriously wounded on the battlefields of Vietnam had a better survival rate than those individuals who were seriously injured in motor vehicle accidents on California freeways.
Early research attributed these differences in outcome to a number of factors, including comprehensive trauma care, rapid transport to designated trauma facilities, and a new type of medical corpsman, one who was trained to perform certain critical advanced medical procedures such as fluid replacement and airway management, which allowed the victim to survive the journey to definitive care.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, a private humanitarian institution based in Switzerland, provided the first official symbol for medical personnel.
Medical personnel from most Western nations carry weapons for protection of themselves and their patients but remain designated non-combatants, wearing the red cross, crescent or crystal.
[13] Traditionally, most United States medical personnel also wore a distinguishing red cross, to denote their protection as non-combatants under the Geneva Convention.
However, the enemies faced by professional armies in more recent conflicts are often insurgents who either do not recognize the Geneva Convention or choose not to adhere to it, and thus readily engage all personnel, irrespective of non-combatant status.
[16] As a result of the 2005 BRAC, the U.S. Department of Defense has moved most medical training for all branches of the armed forces to Fort Sam Houston of Joint Base San Antonio.
[17] Before the 1979 Chinese invasion of Vietnam, the People's Liberation Army did not employ armoured ambulances, leading to difficulties in evacuation casualties from the front lines.
