How has the technology in todays world provided better equipment in order for which Medics/Corpsmen use to save lives and how the technology has changed with time and helped make a better medic/corpsman during their training? I am doing a project and need to know.
How has technology improve the way an Army Medic/Navy Corpsman is trained?
Since I first came in as a Corpsman in 1997 I have seen the following developments:
Quick clotting powder to be poured over a large wound to act as a chemical %26quot;cauterize.%26quot;
Medics can carry a palm pilot with patient information in it that can be transmitted from the medic's hand held unit to the receiving ERs computer. These hand held devices can also hold huge amounts of reference material that the medic can access at any time.
IV solutions used to be only sterile water (with 0.9 sodium). Today we have bags of special high-density molecules that pull fluid from other parts of the body into the blood vessels that can be used on patients that are loosing blood.
During medic and corpsman training the schools have full size dummies that can be programmed by an instructor for any number of problems. In the past a solid plastic dummy would be used and you had to imagine it being injured. Today's (very expensive) mannequins can vomit, have a heart beat, make sounds like it is having trouble breathing and show a heart rhythm on a monitor controlled by an instructor.
Inside the military hospitals communications are a huge improvement. An ER doctor can communicate with a specialist and even show him digitial photos and x-rays online to get advice.
How has technology improve the way an Army Medic/Navy Corpsman is trained?
The medical field is growing in leaps and bounds. I am sorry to say, but whole new fields of medical technology will be gleaned from all the casualties in the recent wars. Many of these people should have died on the battlefield but were saved, horribly burned and missing limbs.
Total reconstruction is not too far off.
I think I saw a show on discovery channel that showed how your average medic in the field will have a robotic vehicle with him that will have an xray machine built in to it, along with all vital life support systems. This is only ten years off, they already have it today, but is in testing and way too expensive to field in numbers that would make a difference.
Also, the technology is just around the corner where you can 'print out' organs for replacement at a field hospital.
Your DNA is taken before you go in to combat.
when you are wounded, say you lose a kidney. A mold is formed and place in a 'gruel' type concoction with your DNA in it. The gruel is injected kind of like how a printer would work, and you have YOUR OWN replacement organ, not someone else's that you will have to take anti-rejection drugs for, it will be YOUR kidney.
all this stuff is just around the corner, your combat medic today has much more knowledge than a medic ten years ago.
I was in Desert Storm when the 'IV enema' was developed.
They say necessity is the mother of invention.
After Desert Storm, the Kurds tried to start a revolution in Iraq, Saddam went in and started slaughtering them, and would cut off the villages and starve the people out. We went in on 'operation provide comfort', immediately after Desert Storm to set up a buffer zone between him and the Kurds.
Some combat medic had a newborn child that was so dehydrated that they couldnt get a vein for an IV.
The medic got desperate, and just shoved the IV up the kid's butt, and hydrated the child enough to get it to a field hospital.
sometimes they make things up as they go.
it makes our job quicker which makes saving lives more profficient. like take the combitube vs intubation: instead of having to carefuly guide it between their vocal cords and into their trachea, you can just throw it in, inflate it, see which tube you need to bag, and if they're still breathing on their own then you can leave it and forget about it. then we came out with the king lt that made thigns even easier. pop it in, both baloons are inflated from the same source, and no matter what they'll be breathing through the one tube so you dont need to make sure you're not pumping air into the stomach.
then there is hextend which is equal to 4x its amount in saline solution for hypovolemic patients.
the CAT, %26quot;ranger%26quot;, and %26quot;sf%26quot; tourniquets that can be applied in less than 8 seconds.
FAST 1's for if you cant get an IV stick
etc
someone above brought up the palm pilots, those things are a waste of space. im not going to take time in a firefight to look up a patients medical history or add %26quot;bullet wound to the right upper leg%26quot; in his medical history, tahts just retarded.
as for training they have pretty lifelike manicans that can resemble almost any injury.
