Military medicine
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The year 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) as well as the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) Center and School's Lessons Learned Division. In the aftermath of Operation Urgent Fury in 1983, the Army recognized the need to create an organization whose sole purpose was to collect, review, and analyze lessons learned and created the CALL in 1985 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The AMEDD followed suit and established the Medical Information System/AMEDD Lessons Learned office under the Directorate of Evaluation and Standardization to research and compile lessons learned as the AMEDD's point of contact for the CALL program. Over these past 25 years the AMEDD Center and School Lessons Learned program evolved and underwent organizational realignments, but the overall mission continues to promote changes either directly or indirectly in the AMEDD's Doctrine, Organizations, Training, Leader Development, Materiel, Personnel and Facilities domains and capabilities to provide combat health service support on the battlefield.
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Challenges with surgical cricothyroidotomy on the battlefield can be attributed to limited frequency of use, procedure unfamiliarity, and limited knowledge base of anatomical landmarks of which is further heighten in the tactical environment. The objective was to identify ways to enhance the cricothyroidotomy training to minimize potential preventable procedural errors. ⋯ An ad hoc Working Group team identified five specific gap areas in the cricothyroidotomy training: (1) limited gross airway anatomy review; (2) lack of "hands-on" human laryngeal anatomy; (3) nonstandardized step-by-step surgical incision skill procedure; (4) inferior standards for anatomically correct cricothyroid mannequins; (5) lack of standardized refresher training frequency. Specific training enhancements are recommended across each day in the classroom, simulation laboratory, and field exercise.