Under siege and surrounded by dying soldiers, the military medic has to think on his feet. Call it what you like, some of the most important breakthroughs in medicine, enjoyed by both civilian and military populations, have come to us during times of war. One-hundred percent mobile with organic vehicles, with 60 beds and assigned nurses, and fully equipped and supplied to provide definitive care, the MASH built on the experiences of the PSHs of World War II.Illustration of battlefield wounds from a 1517 “Field Manual for the Treatment of Wounds” The Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, developed after World War II, would address these concerns. And, finally, the Portable Surgical Hospitals had been stripped so lean that they were never truly self-sufficient, and had to rely on other units for life-support. Third, the assigned surgeons lacked the skills and experience necessary to meet the demands on the units, as Carroll often sent younger, less experienced surgeons forward, a departure from the Army's experience in World War I, which showed that less experienced surgeons should be kept at larger facilities to the rear, where they could operate under the tutelage of a more experienced senior staff surgeon. Second, it lacked the capacity to hold patients for any length of time, which could often be called for by the tactical situation. First, the weight limitations meant that it lacked much of the equipment that it needed to conduct definitive surgery. Designed to meet a specific problem at a specific point in time, the Portable Surgical Hospital had several shortcomings. Ī radical departure was that all of the unit's equipment, medical and surgical supplies, and rations could weigh no more than the 29 men could personally transport. The PSH had to be flexible in nature and the hospitals consisted of what could be carried with the staff, in addition to their personal gear. Commanded by a Medical Corps captain or major, the new 29-man portable hospital had four medical officers (three general surgeons and a general surgeon/ anesthetist) and 25 enlisted men, including two surgical and 11 medical technicians. The new unit was capable of supporting small units in its camp-type version (wits.h 4 female Army nurses and organic vehicles) or battalion and regimental combat teams in its task force version (without the 4 nurses and organic vehicles). ĭuring the summer and fall of 1942, at Carroll's direction, a team of Medical Corps officers modified the basic War Department Table of Organization and Equipment (T/O&E) for a standard 25-bed station hospital (T/O&E 8-560, 22 July 1942) into a new theater table of organization and table of basic allowances (T/O, T/BA) (T/O 8-508-S-SWPA, 31 October 1942) for a portable hospital of 25 beds. This limited his ability to move hospitals closely forward behind advancing forces and support combat operations with effective, far-forward surgical care. Carroll, the Chief Surgeon of the US Army Forces, Southwest Pacific Area, found that he had problems integrating large 400 to 750-bed field and evacuation hospitals into troop flow as forces advanced because of the underdeveloped transportation infrastructure and terrain in the Southwest Pacific, particularly in Papua and New Guinea. Carroll, Chief Surgeon of the US Army Forces, Southwest Pacific Area
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