How The 'Golden Hour' Created A Crisis In Care For The Deployed Warfighter

Good share. When I was active duty Army surgeons were mostly hospital based. Fast Teams were just coming up when I got out. When I went to Saudi Arabia with DS/DS the reserve surgeons did a remarkable job. I was in Ryadi at Saudi Arabian National Guard Hospital and we got soldiers in with incredible work done. For example one guy had a vein graft to repair the femoral artery. We took him to the OR for evaluation and the surgeons commented “ will nothing for me to do”. It is sad to see the Military lose those assets of train physicians in the reserves but, I found many professionals in the reserves were treated very poorly by those assigned for support.

The "golden hour" as a concept (get casualties to surgery within an hour from point of injury) goes back way farther than 2009. (I get that this is a name being applied to a particular mandate, here. Just sayin')
Anyhow, the idea of having Army medical personnel (including surgeons) get time in civilian trauma centers sounds good to me. Enlisted medical personnel also benefit from time in a clinical environment (when I was a medic in the Cav, we spent ALL our time in the motorpool maintaining our M113s. We would rotate out to the TMC for a few months at a time for Medical Proficiency Training, but that mostly consisted of helping with a larger sick call and assisting with fairly routine procedures. Would have been better to have gotten some time in an ER that gets motor vehicle accidents and other such trauma cases.)

Considering veteran nurses to take PFC training such as the expeditionary medic training through OGA sponsorship you will get experienced nurses given the training they can use in only the world of a critical 96 hours in the field. Nurses are allowed to work with local volunteer fire departments but only in rare ride alongs not seriously able to fulfill potential needs. I think it’s about time to put time into veteran nurses and let them be a part of the training or be trained to help assist 18D or PA’s in surgical situations in the field. Plus with a growing civilian population stuck in war zones it wouldn’t hurt to have nurses with other specialties able to assist and navigate within FOBs to deploy quickly supplies and assistance in that all important golden hour.