Surgeons in all career paths, from private practice to hospital-based to academic, contribute to the steady advancement of surgery; military surgeons are no exception. In times of both conflict and relative peace, combat trauma surgeons have been noteworthy contributors to the corpus of surgical science and technique.
In today’s Martin Memorial Lecture, “Combat Trauma: Lessons Learned and Future Challenges for Surgery,” Lester Martinez-Lopez, MD, MPH, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs at the US Department of Defense, will discuss the ties between the development of surgery, combat surgeons, and the ACS.
With the ACS being the House of Surgery for more than a century, it has played a significant role in fostering the development and dissemination of surgical knowledge, and there has been a strong historical partnership between the College and the military medical community, Dr. Martinez-Lopez said.
In his lecture, he will discuss how the common bond of bringing a patient-centered approach to what all surgeons do has driven the evolution of military surgery and has been aided by the ongoing collaboration with the ACS.
The last 20 years have seen such developments as the Joint Trauma Registry, which aggregates combat casualty care epidemiology, treatments, and outcomes to identify areas to improve care, much like ACS data registries.
Additionally, Dr. Martinez-Lopez will discuss improvements in blood products and usage, particularly whole blood; tissue regeneration; the importance of international partnerships to global health; and mitigating the “Walker Dip”—the cycle of improvement of military medical care during a conflict and then a decline in skills during peacetime.
In each of these areas and challenges, partnership with the ACS has been vital to addressing them, Dr. Martinez-Lopez noted.
As an example, the College also has more recently launched programs such as the Military Clinical Readiness Curriculum to help advance surgical training and provide point-of-care knowledge based on what military surgeons have learned from current combat operations in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Dr. Martinez-Lopez said that the lecture will be a chance to recognize the contributions of military medicine to medical advancement, the importance of continued collaborative research and development, and the challenges of present-day warfare and anticipated challenges to come—and to underscore the historic and growing partnership with the ACS.
The Martin Memorial Lecture begins at 9:00 am in the Ballroom Level 3 Moscone West, immediately following the Opening Ceremony. For those who are unable to attend the lecture in person, it will be made available for on-demand viewing shortly after the live presentation.
