Page 28 - JSOM Fall 2019

The NATO Special Operations Surgical Team Development Course

A Program Overview

Paul J. Parker, FIMC, FRCSEd(Orth), RAMC*

ABSTRACT
medical planning, equipment, and employment of SOSTs.
The Special Operations Surgical Team Development Course Students use modern medical simulators, 3G manikins, and
(SOSTDC) is a 5-day course held two or three times a year appropriate military medical equipment to practice team con-
at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) training cepts and surgical skills. The simulation environment includes
facility within the Special Operations Medical Branch (SOMB) the use of noise, heat, light, and smell. Course graduates are
of the Allied Centre for Medical Education (ACME). Its aim is likely to be better prepared to create, maintain, train, and em-
to teach, train, develop, and encourage NATO partner nations ploy SOSTs, thereby increasing NATO SOF medical interop-
to provide robust, hardened, and clinically able surgical resus- erability. Course enrolment priority is normally given to teams
citation teams that are capable of providing close support to currently in direct support of NATO SOF elements.
Special Operations Forces (SOF).
The ACME also provides a range of other complementary
Keywords: Special Operations Surgical Team; resuscitation; courses: the NATO Special Operations Combat Medic Course
in-flight surgery; blood (NSOCoM), the Basic and Advanced Special Operations
Medical Leaders Course (SOMLC and ASOMLC), a Special
Operations Medical Planning and Support Course (SOMP),
Executive Summary a Combat Medical Simulation Course, as well as numerous
research workshops and study days. These courses are free to
The SOSTDC is a 5-day course held two or three times a year NATO member nations and are bid for through NATO. The
at the NATO training facility within the SOMB of ACME in ACME now also offers the first Diploma in Military Special
Mons, Belgium. Its aim is to teach, train, develop, and encour- Operations Forces Medical Care. 3
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age NATO partner nations to provide robust, hardened, and
clinically able surgical resuscitation teams that are capable of
providing close support to SOF taskings, operations, and mis- Educational Objectives
sions. University College Cork, Ireland, as part of its SOF de- Clear and specific educational and learning objectives for the
velopment initiative, provides academic oversight to the course. course are set out and monitored by its educational partner,
The SOSTDC contains only 1 full day of lectures and briefings. University College, Cork.
The rest of the course is taken up with hyperimmersive training
scenarios using the validated crawl, walk, run training method. 2 • Students will understand that the resuscitative and sur-
gical capabilities required within a SOST are different
from those of conventional forces.
The Course
• Students will understand that operating in the remote
Over 5 days, the course teaches NATO medical personnel austere environment, at logistic reach, requires an up-
how to create and refine Special Operations Surgical Teams dated team mind-set: This includes the almost manda-
(SOSTs). The SOF operational environment, characterized by tory use of protocoled checklists.
extended medical evacuation timelines and the high-risk na- • Students will demonstrate that the skills required to eval-
ture of SOF operations, increases SOF personnel’s chances of uate and improve their own nation’s SOST at the tactical
requiring urgent surgical intervention in remote environments. and operational level can have strategic level effect.
National SOF elements now also more frequently participate
in military assistance (MA) and humanitarian response opera- Individual course schedules are tailored to each country before
tions (HRO) by deploying specialized, highly mobile, flexible arrival with prior completion of a questionnaire and a plan-
surgical teams. Medical engagement, host nation partnering, ning meeting (face to face if possible) to determine what level
and limited disaster medical care at reach are also necessary. of progress (nascent, developing, developed) that country or
team has achieved. Courses can be and are modified for those
The course thus discusses and covers foundation and emerging countries that have just assembled and are refining protocols,
concepts in damage control surgery, far forward resuscitation, equipment and team composition.
*Correspondence to parker_paul@hotmail.com
Col Parker is from the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, W. Midlands, United Kingdom; and senior
lecturer in SOF medicine at University College Cork.

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