As long as there has been war, soldiers have counted on medics for lifesaving care in battle. Combat soldiers trust that when they call “Medic!” a trained professional will be at their side, which helps sustain their confidence and will to fight.
The U.S. Army Medical Department Regiment has a proud legacy dating to 1775, tracing its roots to the earliest days of America’s fight for independence. From the Revolutionary War through the world wars, Korea, Vietnam and, most recently, the global war on terrorism, Army Medicine soldiers have stood shoulder to shoulder with their combat arms brethren.
Just as the early infantryman evolved from firing in lines on the battlefield of Lexington, Massachusetts, to the combined arms maneuver of the “Thunder Run” on Baghdad, so has the early medic progressed from using basic cravats on the battlefield to leveraging advances in blood transfusions and antibiotics to return soldiers to the fight.
Wherever the warfighter is—in garrison, training or deployed—there always has been, and always will be, trained and ready Army medics. This legacy and commitment guide the Army Medical Regiment’s current focus, priorities and modernization efforts.
Building Trust
The Army Medical Regiment keeps soldiers in the fight, saves lives and clears the battlefield, providing combat-ready care to the Army and the joint force. The regiment also keeps faith with Army families, ensuring world-class care at home. The knowledge that Army Medicine provides expert medical care anywhere builds trust with warfighters and inspires the confidence required to prevail.
This commitment to optimizing soldier health and lethality begins at home station by ensuring that soldiers are medically prepared for war as the most lethal version of themselves. This lethality is sustained through prevention, health promotion and force health protection.
Should deterrence fail, Army medics provide combat casualty care at the point of need, clearing the battlefield and returning soldiers to the fight. Should soldiers suffer battle injury, disease or illness, Army Medicine remains with them every step of the way through rehabilitation.
Providing this comprehensive Army Health System approach requires the Army Medical Regiment to converge military medical expertise for effect. Five priorities focus the regiment’s training and resourcing efforts:
1. Developing combat-ready medical forces through realistic, threat-informed training and building cohesive, integrated, tactically and technically proficient medical teams.
2. Sustaining health by delivering prevention, health promotion, force health protection and treatment. In combat, clearing the battlefield, saving lives and returning soldiers to the fight.
3. Instilling a culture of continuous transformation by building on Army Medicine’s legacy of transformation in contact. Integrating training, materiel and capability development through modernization.
4. Strengthening our professions by building medical professionals of character and competence that value service above self, aligning authority and accountability, and developing strategic leaders. Investing in the future of Army Medicine by advancing thought, contributing to the literature and developing the next generation of committed, innovative Army Medicine professionals.
5. Leveraging partnerships with joint, multinational, industry and interagency partners to close capability gaps.
Leading Through Change
Pursuing these priorities requires medical leaders at echelon to lead through change. The Military Health System has undergone significant transformation over the past 10-plus years. Organizations and medical capabilities were reassigned from U.S. Army Medical Command to different Army commands and the Defense Health Agency, resulting in changes to task organization, funding and authorities. The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act directed the Defense Health Agency (DHA) to assume authority, direction and control of military treatment facilities. This means DHA is responsible for the business of delivering health care for soldiers, families and retirees.
The transition to DHA provides an opportunity for Army Medicine to focus on its primary purpose—providing expert health service support and force health protection to the Army.
Medical professionals have led through these changes, capitalizing upon opportunities to improve care and advance military medicine. The DHA is a critical partner, integral to sustaining medical soldiers’ technical skills, maintaining a force medically ready to deploy, generating medical forces and, if required, receiving casualties of war.
When considering the Military Health System, military treatment facilities rightly draw much attention because of their daily mission of providing health care to soldiers and families, and their critical contributions to the force generation mission. However, while integral to the Military Health System, they are but one component of medical support provided by the Army Medical Regiment.
To optimize support to the operational force, Army Medicine converges sustainment, force health protection, training, operational medicine, research and development, and command and control capabilities for effect. Across the globe, this involves medical brigades integrating with adjacent Army units to conduct tough, realistic training; the U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence training and educating the force; U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command innovating through cutting-edge research; theater medical commands building trust and capacity with partners and allies while setting the theater; and Army Medical Command providing medical personnel supporting operations with mission-informed training.
Best Outcomes
Caring for wounded, ill and injured soldiers throughout their recovery is an integral part of the Army Medical Regiment’s DNA. Army Medicine is committed to facilitating best outcomes for soldiers and their families, whether that is transitioning back to duty or to continued service in the civilian sector.
To that end, enhancing the effectiveness of soldiers in recovery care will guide restructure and reform options for today’s soldiers while retaining the flexibility required to respond to evolving demands should conflict arise.
Throughout the past decade of change, one thing has remained constant—the Army Medical Regiment’s purpose. The regiment has an enduring and unified purpose across commands, supported by our shared culture. Collectively, regardless of unit alignment, Army Medicine remains committed to providing combat-ready care to build trust, inspire confidence and enable the Army and the joint force. This starts with ownership and an understanding that medical leaders remain accountable and responsible for delivering expert medical care and advisement wherever assigned. Through this, trust is established. Trust is the cornerstone of everything we do.
Continuous Adaptation
Globally, dynamic changes are altering political, social, technological and economic landscapes, creating an environment characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. In some regions, this has resulted in open conflict. In others, threats loom large. Both drive the sense of urgency for transformation, and the Army Medical Regiment is continually adapting to be prepared for the next fight.
No initiative or command can address this challenge in isolation. The Army Medical Regiment, across the Medical Center of Excellence, Medical Research and Development Command, Medical Readiness Commands, theater medical commands and the U.S. Army Medical Capability Development Integration Directorate, works with U.S. Army Futures Command, U.S. Army Forces Command, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, the DHA and joint partners to deliver this capability.
The multiplicative effect of these collaborative partnerships is harnessed through a deliberate, synchronized effort informed by the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command war games and active hostilities in the U.S. Central Command area of operations. It is through the convergence of efforts across commands and components that ideas and concepts are realized for effect to deliver needed capabilities to Army fighting formations.
Modernization Efforts
The Army Warfighting Concept, concept-required capabilities and identified gaps drive medical transformation toward three Army Health System imperatives: clear the wounded from the battlefield, optimize return to duty and overcome contested logistics. The Army Medicine Support Plan to the Army Campaign Plan will operationalize these imperatives, ensuring that the Army Medical Regiment modernizes with holistic DOTMLPF-P (doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities and policy) solutions across the three transformation time horizons. The following examples illustrate the modernization efforts progressing along various levels of maturity:
• Transform in contact (18–24 months): Significant doctrine updates, including Army Techniques Publication 4-02.11: Casualty Response and Field Manual 3-08: Casualty Evacuation, both to be published in June, and FM 4-02: Army Health System; integration into the common operating picture with an Integrated Tactical Network-compatible solution to improve command and control capabilities; advancements to Army medics’ skills and scope of practice; fielding new Prolonged Care Augmentation Detachments; and equipment updates for field-portable ultrasound devices, blood freezers, improved field ventilators, freeze-dried plasma and electronic health care record modernization and delivery.
• Deliberate transformation (three–five years): Improvements to medical evacuation with the Protected Wheeled Ambulance; advanced battlefield medical technologies for applications such as rapid human diagnostics and traumatic brain injury field assessments; data and medical device sensor integration such as the pending Casualty Tracking and Monitoring System and a suite of medical trauma sensors; additional medical interventions such as cryopreserved and cold-stored platelets.
• Concept-driven transformation (five–20 years): Optimizing the organization, structure and employment of medical formations to best support the Army and the joint force in future operational environments; leveraging advanced data networks, machine learning and artificial intelligence to conduct predictive logistics, virtual health and AI-assisted medical diagnostics; improvements to the speed, range, capacity and capability of medevac with the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft medevac variant as well as autonomous treatment and medevac systems.
All transformation efforts are oriented toward providing expert care at the point of need, enhancing the Army’s capability to win wars. This massive undertaking requires ruthless prioritization in a zero-growth, fiscally constrained environment—a true test of leaders’ strategic understanding of maximizing military medical value to the fight. It is an exciting time to lead in Army Medicine.
Top-Notch Professionals
Fortunately, transformation is familiar to the Army Medical Regiment. Since 1775, military medicine has been transforming to ensure that the best combat casualty care is provided at the point of need. The center of gravity for successful transformation has historically been, and remains today, our people—the best, most highly proficient medical professionals in the world.
Army Medicine investments reflect the reality that people are our most strategic asset. In conjunction with continuous transformation efforts, the regiment is heavily investing in retention, recruiting and training to ensure that we build and keep the best team for the finest fighting force in the world. The active involvement of these soldiers and civilians in strengthening the profession through discourse, whiteboarding and writing reinforces the foundation of our profession and does much to advance transformation efforts. From this foundation, Army Medicine challenges the status quo, proactively leading innovation to ensure the continued best support to the warfighter.
Army Medicine inspires confidence, emboldens courage and delivers care and comfort for the warfighter. Wherever the Army goes, soldiers of the Army Medical Regiment will be there to provide expert combat casualty care.
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Lt. Gen. Mary Izaguirre is the 46th surgeon general of the U.S. Army and the commanding general of U.S. Army Medical Command, Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston. Previously, she served as commanding general of U.S. Army Medical Readiness Command, East. She deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan. She is a doctor of osteopathic medicine who is board-certified in family medicine, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She has three master’s degrees: one in public health from the University of Washington; one in military arts and science from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College; and the third in national security and resource strategy from the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy.
Maj. Brian Thorson serves as the strategic adviser to the Army surgeon general and commanding general of Army Medical Command. Previously, he served in the Commanders Action Group, XVIII Airborne Corps. He deployed to Afghanistan. He has two master’s degrees: one in military operations from the School of Advanced Military Studies, and one in operational studies from the Command and General Staff College.