Can you explain military medicine and how its different to NHS for a school project? :)

Hi Isobel,

You have two slightly different questions there. There are lots of ways that military medicine differs from the NHS, probably too many to go in to on here, hopefully I can give you a few ideas for your project.

The main difference between the systems will be care pathways (how a soldier goes from the point they are wounded to a major trauma centre).

This document is quite heavy, but it lays out the stages of care a soldier will experience, from the point they are wounded, to returning to the UK https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/377801/20140806-JSP_950_Ed_2_Operational_Patient_Care_Pathway.pdf

You might find this helpful as well https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03071847.2020.1784039

Hint: you could focus on Role 1-4 in the military pathway vs how this compares to the NHS (ambulances/district general hospitals/trauma centres).

Nearly all secondary healthcare military doctors (surgeons, emergency medicine doctors etc..) will work in an NHS hospital while they are at home in the UK, so often skills developed abroad will be bought back to the NHS.

Your second question was about military medicine being applied to civilian medicine. The best example of this will probably be the lessons learnt from trauma care in Afghanistan and Iraq, and how this changed practices in the NHS. You might find this paper helpful https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0141076815570923

Best of luck with your project.

Thank you! That's really helpful, I wanted the difference between them as sort of an overview for the introduction so your answers to both my questions are great