Combat Medic?

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TheCourier

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I had asked earlier if EMT-P's were effective in treating combat-related injuries such as gunshots, explosions or other acute physical trauma.


You all will think I'm crazy, but I want to learn to treat physical trauma because my brother, who works for Doctors Without Borders, is in Syria. He tells me about the injured civilians and rebels over there that need treatment from gunshot wounds and explosions.

I want to learn to treat injured civilians with acute physical trauma in war-zones.

Is there any way to learn these skills other than spending years in school to become a trauma surgeon?
 
RevolverOcelot said:
I had asked earlier if EMT-P's were effective in treating combat-related injuries such as gunshots, explosions or other acute physical trauma.


You all will think I'm crazy, but I want to learn to treat physical trauma because my brother, who works for Doctors Without Borders, is in Syria. He tells me about the injured civilians and rebels over there that need treatment from gunshot wounds and explosions.

I want to learn to treat injured civilians with acute physical trauma in war-zones.

Is there any way to learn these skills other than spending years in school to become a trauma surgeon?
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no, so you might as well just do it.
 
The only truly helpful treatment an EMS provider can provide to a trauma patient is pain management and diesel fuel.

If your heart is in it and the ambition is there don't settle for EMS level care.
 
PM for the benefit of others.

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I have been involved in fire and EMS for many years.

Early on in my career I wanted to specialize in trauma.

The more you learn about it, the more you realize that only physicians can be the true specialists.

Everyone else just has a few skills to play with until a physician can be brought.

In some places, trauma is the realm of general surgery. In some vascular surgery. Yet others, orthopedic surgery.

It is a surgeons disease. (strangely enough so is sepsis)

Anyway, as somebody who is involved in trauma and went to medical school in order to be one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, I can tell you...

You must be a surgeon and an intensivist if you really plan to make a difference.
 
There's no way I could help save lives of critically injured?


I'd be willing to learn anything I have to.
 
Your best bet is to either become a military medic to go to medical school.
 
my former partner was a Navy Corpman assigned to a Marine unit in the Middle East. He told me for most major traumas, all he did was give pain meds, bleeding control, maybe an intubation depending on the injury, and a rapid helicopter ride to a trauma surgeon waiting to patch him up.
 
RevolverOcelot said:
There's no way I could help save lives of critically injured?


I'd be willing to learn anything I have to.
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If you are willing to learn anything you have to, medical school is the only path.

You will always regret it if you dont.

I am only 23 and not a day goes by at work that I don't wish I had cared more about school and moved on to med school. I'm going to do everything I can to maybe get the some day...
 
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my former partner was a Navy Corpman assigned to a Marine unit in the Middle East. He told me for most major traumas, all he did was give pain meds, bleeding control, maybe an intubation depending on the injury, and a rapid helicopter ride to a trauma surgeon waiting to patch him up.
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That bleeding control though... couldn't that mean the difference between life and death?
 
Your best bet is to either become a military medic to go to medical school.
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I once heard that military combat medics don't know much more than an actual EMT-P. I wonder if that's true?
 
RevolverOcelot said:
I once heard that military combat medics don't know much more than an actual EMT-P. I wonder if that's true?
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Many won't have much experience outside trauma. Which is pretty straight forward most times at our level of treatment.
 
That course has very little chance on allowing the OP to actually perform in an international battlezone.
 
Ma'am.


And you need more than knowledge. Aid agencies and embassies get really upset when random people start dropping into countries trying to help when they are not qualified.
 
RevolverOcelot said:
That bleeding control though... couldn't that mean the difference between life and death?
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That's a qualified "yes." The answer really depends upon the actual injury and what it will take to stop the bleeding. Small paper-cut, no need to see the doc... direct pressure will do just fine. There just is some bleeding that only a surgeon can control. Sometimes the best that can be done in the field is to try to slow it down, if that is even possible. I know more than a little bit about bleeding control, but I also know that there's a whole bunch that I don't know about bleeding control.

I do the best I can with what I have and quickly get the patient to the person or team that can provide the necessary care if the patient needs exceed what I can provide (which is easily possible in a battle setting).
 
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