Page 75 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Winter 2014

Figure 8 Reported beliefs relating to SFMS’ subjective Figure 11 Reported perception of control over SFMS’
norms/peers. medical sustainment training.

Figure 12 SFMS’ reported perception of control over their
medical sustainment training.

Figure 9 Reported beliefs relating to SFMS’ motivation to
comply/opinion of medical supervisors.

and other administrative requirements. They rated these
as barriers occurring close to often. Funding was thought
to be a barrier more than sometimes, and Command
emphasis was seen as a barrier sometimes (Figure 13).

Influence of control beliefs
The influence upon these control beliefs revealed that
SFMS felt that they were less than “moderately con-
fident” in the current sustainment program to sustain
their medical skills in more than one-half of the medical
areas and only “quite confident” in one area: sustaining
their surgical skills (Figure 14).
Figure 10 SFMS’ reported beliefs relating to their motivation
to comply/opinion of Command. In contrast, SFMS felt between quite confident and ex-
tremely confident that they would be able to sustain
their medical skills if a theoretical “ideal” sustainment
program were in place (Figure 15).

Figure 13 Reported perception of different barriers to
conducting medical sustainment training.

(Figure 11) and feel that it is between slightly difficult
and neutral to sustain their medical skills (Figure 12).

SFMS reported that the major barriers to conducting
medical sustainment training are operational tempo,
unit taskings, the requirements to sustain other skills,

Perceptions and Beliefs About Medical Sustainment Programs 65