Combat Anesthesia: A Case Report of a Gunshot Wound and New Trauma Protocols

Revolutionary innovations and technical advances in the disciplines of medicine, surgery, and anesthesia are inextricably connected to military conflict. The demonstrated lifesaving value of these novel approaches in high-acuity trauma has provided the impetus for translation of these elements into injury care in the civilian environment. One element of this battlefield medical revolution is the implementation and refinement of forward surgical care. All US military services have unique configurations of this surgical team to match their expeditionary capacity. The US Army Forward Surgical Team (FST) is a small, mobile surgical unit fielded since the 1990s, but not ubiquitously used until the current contingency operations in southwest Asia. The FST has been used in a variety of ways during the current conflict with or without augmentation by a forward support medical company, Area Support Medical Company, and Brigade Medical Company also known as C-Med. Far forward stand-alone FST have often been emplaced to provide a surgical capability for patients in austere operational environments and to optimize casualty survival in situations of high-risk operations and/or with potential for protracted evacuation.