[German military surgeons in deployment abroad: life and working conditions]

Since 1992 the German Bundeswehr has been deployed for securing peace and peacekeeping abroad. Since then 83 German soldiers have been killed and overall 129 wounded in action as of 07.12.2009. In Northern Afghanistan the German Bundeswehr runs a combat support hospital (role 3) in Mazar-e-Sharif providing a multidisciplinary capability profile. Furthermore, there are two role 2 medical treatment facilities for primary surgical trauma care located in Kunduz and Feyzabad. In these role 2 facilities life saving procedures and damage control operations are performed in order to enable rapid evacuation to a higher level of care. Thereby military surgeons are often confronted with various medical and logistic challenges. The German Navy also has two equivalent role 2 medical treatment facilities (Naval Rescue Centers) aboard its two combat support ships (CSS) "Berlin" and "Frankfurt am Main" to support maritime task groups operating worldwide. These floating field hospitals provide an indispensable asset in the medical emergency care of naval operations with difficult space-time factors. Due to the specific operating alliance between CSS and Naval Rescue Center, special operations as well as evacuation and humanitarian missions following disasters near the coastline can be effectively accomplished.