March 31, 2021 | Download PDF
Mr. Eric Briggs, a combat medic, and Mr. Rob Shotto, a Simulations Technologist, both from TATRC’s Medical Modeling Simulation, Informatics, and Visualization (MMSIV) team, conducted an all-day Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) training session for the MMSIV staff. Some may wonder, what is TCCC? It is the standard of care for all DoD combatant personnel in operational environments. TCCC is not only for military environments, but is also practiced in the civilian pre-hospital sector and in other countries as well. TCCC sets the priorities and standards for administering care in an operational environment. TCCC is made up of 4 phases; Care Under Fire, Tactical Field Care, Tactical Evacuation Care and Prolonged Casualty Care. The training provides detailed information on tactical decision making while providing emergency medical care, detailed emergency trauma treatments used to treat casualties, medications and tactical doctrine. The MMSIV team took the Medical Provider course, which is taught to DoD medical providers such as combat medics and licensed professionals such as physicians in order to expand, refresh, and familiarize their knowledge.
TATRC’s diverse MMSIV team works collaboratively on many different projects and programs and the team consists of both medical and non-medical members. Mr. Rob Shotto stated, “Because the nature of our research is primarily focused on military medical environments, it is important to understand how treatments are administered, where they are administered, why or why not they are administered or when they are done. The MMSIV division serves as a tangible research tool for TATRC programs. We provide the physical data. We provide human factors testing data, device performance data in a real time environment and provide Service Member feedback for the studies. We capture the “Real Life” data.”
This training is valuable for everyone on the MMSIV team to become familiarized with TCCC. This base knowledge helps communications within the team, understanding terminology and understanding the reasons why, or purpose of why tactical medicine does what it does and when it does it.
The entire MMSIV team, which is comprised of statisticians, human factors engineers, IT network experts, artificial intelligence experts, and MMSIV leadership, all participated in this one day training event that took place in our lab here at TATRC.
Human Factors Engineer, Mr. Jimmy Gaudean stated, “As a large proponent of the user centered design process, it is imperative that you understand the target user group. Just about all the projects that I am a part of have implications towards Service Members who are TCCC trained. This training was able to give me a better understanding of the thought process that goes behind some of the decisions that a medic would have to make.”
Dr. Amy Lingley-Papadopoulos, MMSIV’s AI / Machine Learning Research Scientist, added, “This training provided a better understanding of both the TCCC guidelines and the environment in which they are used. One of the projects I am currently working on is both a medical and technical challenge. I have the technical background, but this training helped provide some of the necessary medical and military information that will allow me to see the product from more than just the engineering perspective.”
The goal of this training is to provide an understanding of the medical and operational environment, in which the MMSIV team does research. It provides a context for team members to draw from as they conduct their research in their specific area of expertise. It also allows the staff to consider the unique characteristics of operational medicine and creatively think about solutions.
Completion of this training provided the MMSIV team a deeper knowledge and understanding of how our combat medics perform their jobs, act as force multipliers, and conserve the fighting strength.
For more information on the TCCC Training and other initiatives within the MMSIV division, please contact Mr. Geoff Miller at geoffrey.t.miller4.civ@mail.mil.