Military doctors will focus on research in times of peace, says surgeon general
BMJ 2014; 348 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g4107 (Published 17 June 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;348:g4107Research will become a focus for Britain’s Defence Medical Services (DMS) after a withdrawal from Afghanistan, the services’ surgeon general has said.
Paul Evans, the surgeon general of the DMS, said that it was important for the medical military workforce to retain its skills and “impetus” after the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Speaking at a Royal Society of Medicine event in London, Evans said that carrying out research was one way that the DMS could maintain that impetus.
“We really have gone from the backwater in terms of status in UK medicine, to be at the forefront of UK medicine in certain areas,” he said. “Obviously that is primarily trauma related, but in other areas as well [such as] infectious diseases. Maintaining that capability in research is going to be one of the crucial things that will keep that stimulus and interest if we start to get quiet for a few years beyond Afghanistan.”
He added, “At the minute we assume that we will go back into an expeditionary, occasional exercise type programme. It’s [important] how we manage that for the future, and I think research is how we maintain stimulus in the next few years.”
Telemedicine would also become important for the DMS in the future, Evans said, because it could allow for deployment of fewer people to the front line. “The interest we have in telemedicine is significant,” said Evans. “If you can show very clear real life pictures of things that are happening in deployment, then you might run into a position where you don’t have to deploy so many people. The balance there is very important, particularly when we are moving to a very super-specialist medicine type [of] delivery in the UK.”
He added that military generalists would be able to recognise problems and refer them to specialist colleagues in the UK for advice. “I’m talking about 5 to 10 years’ time in development,” he said. “If we can relay problems back to the home base or help our junior doctors who are working in submarines or on ships, then clearly that’s the way we’ve got to go in the future.”