Replies

Here is a good article on post service help for Special Forces (Green Beret) medics.

http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2015/march/returning-the-favor

“We discovered there’s no better medic on the planet than the 18-Delta Special Forces Medical Sergeant,” he says. “It’s more difficult to become a Special Forces medic than it is to become an NFL football player – it truly is amazing. We are talking about the very best of the best.”

The first course at JSOMTC is the Combat Medic Course, which is taken over six months and is generally considered traditional military medic education. The second, much more selective and demanding course, is the Medical Sergeant Course, which requires an additional six months of training and includes elements of nursing, dentistry, surgery, veterinary medicine, public health, and health-care-related areas.

“You have to remember that these people are soldiers first, and under fire they have to be able to do a number of things quickly and decisively or the mission will fail,” says Cairns. “So, unlike medical school, these folks must train to achieve competence as opposed to be evaluated for performance or to get a grade. These soldiers must graduate from this program knowing how to do a tracheostomy, put in a central line, or stabilize a femur in a combat situation. It’s a different approach.”

As the group from UNC learned more about the level of training and the expertise of the Special Forces medics, they saw an opportunity to help JSOMTC instructors and medic trainees with education and career development. In collaboration with the JSOMTC, the School of Medicine, and UNC Medical Center, the Burn Center launched the Advanced Medic Instructor Training (AMIT) program.

AMIT provides Special Forces medic training instructors who have practiced skills in combat an opportunity to rotate at UNC Hospitals in any specialty they want, whether in the burn unit, the surgical intensive care unit, psychiatry, the emergency department, vascular surgery, or elsewhere.