Articles: ninos.
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Stability operations, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions, are key functions of U.S. Military medicine and the Military Medical Humanitarian Assistance Course (MMHAC) is a 2-day course widely used to prepare military medical personnel for such missions. It focuses on caring for those most vulnerable in the wake of disasters, particularly children. The large-scale humanitarian deployment of military medical providers in support of Operation Allies Welcome/Operation Allies Refuge (OAW/OAR) presents an opportunity to evaluate the preparedness of these providers to care for the needs of the Afghan travelers, so we explored the experiences of military medical providers deployed in support of OAW/OAR to inform improvements in the MMHAC. ⋯ Physicians found the OAR/OAW mission meaningful but also identified challenges related to medical care provision, public health, logistics, and ethical dilemmas that hindered their ability to carry out their medical mission. Lessons learned from OAW/OAR highlight several areas in which the MMHAC training could be augmented and improved to further mitigate these challenges.
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The Air Force Dental Service is responsible for ensuring that airmen are dentally ready to support military operations worldwide by delivering top-tier dental care. As the military healthcare landscape undergoes significant changes, the Air Force Dental Service has explored innovative approaches to dental care delivery. One consideration involves the potential use of radiographs as the primary tool for assessing service members' dental conditions, specifically focusing on identifying nondeployable conditions and periodontal health. ⋯ The study strongly cautions against relying solely on radiographs for determining the dental health of U.S. Air Force personnel. While providers effectively ruled out the absence of certain conditions, the challenge of positively identifying DRC 3 conditions poses significant risks to oral health if such a workflow was utilized. Particularly, the high probability of false negatives would be detrimental to the operational readiness of military personnel. Therefore, results support the continued use of radiographic and clinical examinations for comprehensive dental exams.
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Apolipoprotein L1 gene (APOL1) variants are risk factors for chronic kidney disease (CKD) among Black Americans. Data are sparse on the genetic epidemiology of CKD and the clinical association of APOL1 variants with CKD in West Africans, a major group in the Black population. ⋯ In this study, monoallelic APOL1 variants were associated with 18% higher odds of CKD and 61% higher odds of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis; biallelic APOL1 variants were associated with 25% higher odds of CKD and 84% higher odds of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. (Funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute and others.).
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A successful working relationship between the Military Medical Officer (MMO) and Commanding Officer (CO) is critical for mission success. However, there is a gap in the professional literature outlining evidence-based practices for teaching early career MMOs how to strategically develop this relationship. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to explore our participants' perceptions of how MMOs can foster a positive and productive working relationship with the CO. ⋯ Communication, presence, and role fulfillment are essential elements for optimizing the MMO-CO working relationship. Learning these roles during medical school may enhance early career physicians' mission readiness.
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The potential impact of large-scale combat operations and multidomain operations against peer adversaries poses significant challenges to the Military Health System including large volumes of critically ill and injured casualties, prolonged care times in austere care contexts, limited movement, contested logistics, and denied communications. These challenges contribute to the probability of higher casualty mortality and risk that casualty care hinders commanders' forward momentum or opportunities for overmatch on the battlefield. Novel technical solutions and associated concepts of operation that fundamentally change the delivery of casualty care are necessary to achieve desired medical outcomes that include maximizing Warfighter battle-readiness, minimizing return-to-duty time, optimizing medical evacuation that clears casualties from the battlefield while minimizing casualty morbidity and mortality, and minimizing resource consumption across the care continuum. ⋯ Our path to combat casualty care automation starts with mapping and modeling the context of casualty care in realistic environments through passive data collection of large amounts of unstructured data to inform machine learning models. These context-aware models will be matched with patient physiology models to create casualty digital twins that better predict casualty needs and resources required and ultimately inform and accelerate decision-making across the continuum of care. We will draw from the experience of the automotive industry as an exemplar for achieving automation in health care and inculcate automation as a mechanism for optimizing the casualty care survival chain.