Promotion of Cadaver-Based Military Trauma Education: Integration of Civilian and Military Trauma Systems

For the past few decades, there has been an emphasis on encouraging the partnership of civilian and military trauma care systems which would allow military personnel to maintain competency in life-saving skills and gain experience prior to or in between deployments. Currently, there are only five primary military-civilian training centers in the United States. Thus, the majority of service members do not get the opportunity to train at these facilities prior to scheduled deployments. To bridge this gap, a joint military-civilian hands-on supplemental training program was established to allow deploying National Guard Combat Medics to practice life-saving techniques on human cadaver tissue. The purpose of this report is to provide the feedback survey from this pilot training session in hopes to expand and improve the curriculum and encourage partnerships between military and civilian trauma centers.

Survey respondents include the 13 National Guard Combat Medic Specialists who attended the 6-hour voluntary training session. The survey asked qualitative and quantitative (using a 5-point Likert rating scale; 1 = insufficient/unacceptable/disagree; 5 = outstanding/exceeded expectations/strongly agree) questions regarding the structure of the session, likes and improvements about the classroom and cadaver lab portions, implementation into training, confidence in techniques before and after the session and overall rating of the session. This report has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Rutgers University.

Most attendees (12 of 13) agreed that the 6-hour total time length and division of classroom versus lab time was appropriate. Most attendees (12 of 13) agreed that this type of supplemental hands-on cadaver training should be a mandatory part of their medical training. The attendees' rated confidence in covered techniques was significantly increased from 3.77 ± 0.73 to 4.85 ± 0.38 (p < 0.01) before and after the session, respectively. The overall satisfaction rating of the session was 4.92 ± 0.28.

This collaboration between military and civilian trauma care system was successful in giving National Guard combat medic specialists the opportunity to practice life-saving techniques on human tissue prior to deployment. This type of partnership can assist in maintaining readiness for trauma care and increasing the confidence of military pre-hospital providers in performing life-saving techniques.