TACTICAL COMBAT CASUALTY CARE IN SPECIAL OPERATIONS

U.S. military medical personnel are currently trained to care for comb at casualties using the principles taught in the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course, The appropriateness of many of the measures tau ght in ATLS for the combat setting is unproven, A 2-year study to revi ew this issue has been sponsored by the United States Special Operatio ns Command, This paper presents the results of that study, We will rev iew some of the factors that must be considered in caring for wounded patients on the battlefield with an emphasis on the Special Operations environment. A basic management protocol is proposed that organizes c ombat casualty care into three phases and suggests appropriate measure s for each phase. A scenario-based approach is needed to plan in more detail for casualties on specific Special Operations missions, and sev eral sample scenarios are presented and discussed.