Military medicine
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The Indo-Asia-Pacific region has the highest incidence of natural disasters world-wide. Since 2000, approximately 1.6 billion people in this region have been affected by earthquakes, volcanos, tsunamis, typhoons, cyclones, and large-scale floods. The aftermath of disasters can quickly overwhelm available resources, resulting in loss of basic infrastructure, shelter, health care, food and water, and ultimately, loss of life.Over the last 12 years, US military forces have collaborated with countries throughout the Indo-Asia-Pacific region to enhance disaster preparedness and management during shipboard global health engagement missions. Military health care personnel are integral in this effort and have planned subject-matter expert exchanges, multidisciplinary conferences, courses, and hyper realistic simulated military-to-military training exercises related to disaster preparedness.Military health care providers are essential not only to providing international education and training, but also to ensuring optimal readiness to respond to future disasters in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region and worldwide. The ability to effectively respond to disasters and collaborate with other nations promotes international stability. Yet, few studies have examined disaster preparedness among US military health care personnel. This study aimed to assess knowledge, skills, and preparedness for disaster management among US military health care personnel preparing to deploy on a global health engagement mission. ⋯ Disaster preparedness among military healthcare personnel could be improved to function optimally for future global health engagement missions. This study expands current understandings of disaster preparedness among US military health care providers and identifies ways to improve and enhance training.
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Acute calcific periarthritis of the hand is a condition that can easily be misdiagnosed resulting in unnecessary diagnostic studies and treatment. The condition is thought to be benign with a self-resolving course. ⋯ Following orthopedic consultation, he was determined to have acute calcific periarthritis of the small finger (metacarpophalangeal) MCP joint with resolution over approximately 3 weeks without recurrence over a 5-month period. This case report reviews the natural history of acute calcific deposits of the hand and its correct identification through clinical exam and plain radiographs to avoid unnecessary diagnostic testing and invasive surgical interventions.
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In military populations, physician burnout has potential to adversely affect medical readiness to deploy in support of joint operations. Burnout among Graduate Medical Education (GME) faculty may further threaten the welfare of the medical force given the central role these officers have in training and developing junior physicians. The primary aim of this investigation was to estimate the prevalence of burnout among faculty physicians in United States (US) Army, Navy, and Air Force GME programs. ⋯ We estimate that 26% of physician faculty in military GME programs are experiencing burnout. No specialty, branch of service, or specific demographic was immune to burnout in our sample. Institutional leaders in the MHS should take action to address physician burnout and consider using our prevalence estimate to assess effectiveness of future interventions.
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In order to address the problem of suicide, healthcare providers and researchers must be able to accurately identify suicide deaths. Common approaches to detecting suicide in the healthcare setting include the National Death Index (NDI) and Root-Cause Analysis (RCA) methodology. No study has directly compared these two methods. ⋯ Combining national and local approaches to detect suicide may help to improve the classification of suicide deaths in the healthcare setting.