US Military healthcare for battlefield injuries suffers with 'serious shortage' of skilled surgeons, claims report
The US has the world's most powerful army but how is it doing healthwise? According to an investigative report published by US News & World Report, surgical readiness in the Military Health Service (MHS) is not in the best of shape.
Why? Because a vital asset in the form of surgeons and surgical teams that cater to save lives on the battlefield and off it is being squandered.
The report, which took nine months to prepare, is the latest addition in a continuous probe into the military healthcare situation.
Several interviews of both active and retired military surgeons and confidential surveys of military doctors and Pentagon records were conducted by US News.
They have arrived at the conclusion that there are: "severe shortages" of skilled surgeons especially those dealing with trauma and army field hospitals that lack proper specialty capabilities for a combat zone.
Surgeons turn to civilian hospitals to practice their skills since there is an active-duty patient population that doesn't need surgeries and long deployments that keep the doctors out of the operating rooms for as long as a month at a stretch.
According to the report, documents revealed that the members of the army's Joint Military Trauma System and other medical leaders in the military have cautioned the Pentagon time and again about the crisis that surgical care faces.
Surgeon General Nadja West retired last December and her deputy Major General Scott Dingle replaced him this July. His appointment was confirmed by the Senate last month but it was learned that Dingle has no medical degree or clinical experience and is more an administrator.
The military health care system invests $650 billion every year in a network of hospitals and clinics to cater to the healthy, young, active personnel and their families besides some retired personnel.
The army justifies this arrangement by saying it gives military health personnel an opportunity to sharpen skills until they are required on the battlefield. In reality, the opposite outcome is seen as military hospitals blunt surgeons' skills since most of them spend very little time in the operating chamber.
The situation is so bad that many surgeons view the military hospitals where they are assigned like a confinement, the US News report added.
Surgeons flay the system
While the Congress has accepted the Pentagon's assurances that military hospitals can keep surgeons' skills fresh, surgeons and other trauma-care specialists have flayed the current system that is not prepared to cater to the needs of wounded soldiers.
To know the army surgeons' thoughts on the situation, US News reached out to 140 of them secretly (over 20 responded) and came to learn that many of them became disenchanted with their military careers.
The doctors said they were worried over a number of factors — the state of the army surgery service, the complacency of commanders and the lack of awareness among young combatants who remained hopeful that they will have good care for themselves if they are injured.
"These 20-year-old kids think they're getting top-notch care," one surgeon was quoted as saying by US News. "They're not. And it's nobody's fault but the Army's."