Military medicine
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Previous conflicts have demonstrated the impact of physician readiness on early battlefield mortality rates. To prepare for the lethal nature of today's threat environment and the rapid speed with which conflict develops, our medical force needs to sustain a high level of readiness in order to be ready to "fight tonight." Previous approaches that have relied on on-the-job training, just-in-time predeployment training, or follow-on courses after residency are unlikely to satisfy these readiness requirements. Sustaining the successes in battlefield care achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan requires the introduction of effective combat casualty care earlier and more often in physician training. This needs assessment seeks to better understand the requirements, challenges, and opportunities to include the Military Unique Curriculum (MUC) during graduate medical education. ⋯ Current Military Unique Curricula do not meet the expected requirements of future battlefields. Several solutions to incorporate more robust military unique training without creating any significant additional time burdens for trainees do exist. Despite the limitation of these results being limited to a single institution, this needs assessment provides a starting point for improvement to help ensure that we limit the impact of any "peacetime effect."
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Nearly a billion dollars is spent annually in the Military Health System (MHS) on cancer diagnosis and treatment, with a large portion of that directed toward breast, prostate, and ovarian cancers. Multiple studies have demonstrated the impact of specific cancers on MHS beneficiaries and Veterans, highlighting the fact that active duty and retired military members have a higher incidence than the general public for many chronic diseases and certain forms of cancer. The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs have supported research that has contributed to the development, clinical testing, and commercialization of 11 cancer drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat breast, prostate, or ovarian cancers. In addition to hallmark funding mechanisms that prioritize innovative, groundbreaking ideas, the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program's cancer programs continue to identify new approaches to fill critical gaps across the full research spectrum, including bridging the translational research gap toward developing new treatments for cancer patients in the MHS and in the general American public.
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The overarching objective of the Office of Naval Research sponsored Blast Load Assessment Sense and Test (BLAST) program was to quantify neurofunctional risk from repeated blast exposure. However, human studies have limitations in data collection that can only be addressed by animal models. To utilize a large animal model in this work, researchers developed an approach for scaling blast exposure data from animal to human-equivalent loading. For this study, energy interacting with the brain tissue was selected as a translation metric because of the hypothesized association between observed neurological changes and energy transmitted through the skull. This article describes the methodology used to derive an energy-based transfer function capable of serving as a global correspondence rule for primary blast injury exposure, allowing researchers to derive human-appropriate thresholds from animal data. ⋯ The fundamental goal of this study was to develop pig-to-human transfer functions to allow researchers to interpret data collected from large animal studies and aid in deriving risk functions for repeated blast exposures. Similarities in porcine and human brain physiology make the minipig experimental model an excellent candidate for blast research. However, differences in the skull geometry have historically made the interpretation of animal data difficult for the purposes of characterizing potential neurological risk in humans. Human equivalent loading conditions are critical so that the thresholds are not over- or underpredicted due to differences in porcine skull geometry. This research provides a solution to this challenge, providing a robust methodology for interpreting animal data for blast research.
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The coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has forced radical changes in management of healthcare in military treatment facilities (MTFs). Military treatment facilities serve unique patients that have a service connection; thus, research and data on this population are relatively sparse. The purpose of this study was to provide descriptive data on characteristics and outcomes of MTF patients with COVID-19 who are treated with heated high-flow nasal cannula (HHFNC). ⋯ Our retrospective cohort study characterized and analyzed outcomes observed in a MTF population, with severe or life-threatening COVID-19, who were treated with HHFNC. While the study did not have the power to make concrete conclusions on the optimal form of respiratory support for COVID-19 patients, our data support HHFNC as a reasonable treatment modality despite some notable differences between our cohort and prior studied patient populations.
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Scalp avulsion is a rare trauma in the developed world but is a common injury in countries with poorly established infrastructure and safety regulations. This case reports the long-term sequelae of this injury, observed while conducting a humanitarian mission, and discusses immediate actions for management in an acute setting. We aim to increase awareness about this injury, its risk factors, and treatment options to better prepare clinicians in the developed world to provide care for this condition in the austere environment, which may include not only chronic pain, functional, and aesthetic concerns, but also a psychological impact that persists years after the initial injury.