Articles: health.
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Operation Allies Welcome provided a unique opportunity for military medical personnel to engage in humanitarian assistance operations on military bases in the USA. With thousands of Afghan nationals evacuated from Kabul in August 2021 to various military installations across the USA, the Military Health System was tasked with health screening, emergency care, and disease prevention and surveillance in resource-limited settings. Marine Corps Base Quantico served as a "safe haven" site from August to December 2021, providing refuge to nearly 5000 travelers awaiting resettlement. ⋯ Further, early engagement with telecommunications companies when practicing in a remote location can be crucial to mission success. Finally, the medical care team should maintain continued mindfulness of the cultural norms of the population to which aid is given, particularly the gender norms and expectations of Afghan nationals. The authors hope that these lessons can prove informative and may provide increased readiness for future humanitarian assistance missions.
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Military medicine is uniquely different from civilian medicine, and military physicians in the USA are primarily recruited through the Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP) and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). Medical students at the USUHS receive more than 650 hours of military-specific curriculum and spend 21 days engaged in field exercises. HPSP students complete two 4-week officer training sessions during their 4 years of medical school. There is a clear discrepancy in preparation for military medicine between HPSP and USUHS students. The USUHS School of Medicine undertook an initiative to develop a fully online self-paced course on the fundamentals of military medicine topics to help HPSP students bridge the gap in their preparation. This article will describe how the online self-paced course was designed and present feedback from the pilot offering of this course. ⋯ This pilot study has shown that there is a need for a course that provides the fundamentals of military medicine to HPSP students. A fully online self-paced course provides flexibility for the students and improves access.
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Chronic kidney diseases (CKD) is an important public health issue worldwide, and diabetes mellitus is the main cause of CKD. Having sufficient disease knowledge and good self-care behavior both help to prevent the progression of diabetes mellitus and CKD. This cross-sectional study enrolled 181 type 2 diabetic patients with CKD from July 2017 to October 2017. ⋯ The relationship between young age and high scores of disease knowledge was found (P = .001); however, old age was significantly associated with high scores of overall self-care behavior (P < .001) while additionally, married patients had high scores of regular medication behavior (P = .03). Our findings identified the significant factors correlated with disease knowledge and self-care behavior in type 2 diabetic patients with CKD. Healthcare givers should establish personalized health education plans to improve perceived disease knowledge and self-care behavior.
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The USA currently does not have a national parental leave policy. In 2016, the Secretary of Defense increased the allotted maternity leave for active duty U.S. military members from 6 to 12 weeks. The purpose of this study was to understand the potential impact of this change on attrition rates of active duty women in the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines from their initial prenatal visit through the first year postpartum. ⋯ Family-friendly health policy appears to have the intended outcome of retaining talent in the military workforce. The impact of health policy on this population can provide a glimpse into the influence of similar policies should they be implemented nationwide.