The international delegation, headed by Ana Lucía Bueno, ICRC Public Health Coordinator, and Sujit Panda, Head of the Physical Rehabilitation…
It does not matter whether a person was mobilized or joined the military under contract — in any case, they must complete basic military training. One of the most important components of such training is tactical medicine.
This was discussed on air of Suspilne by Oleksandr Severyn, Staff Sergeant Second Class of the Monitoring and Analytics Department of the Medical Support Directorate of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
According to him, the tactical medicine course for recruits lasts 30 hours. About one-third is theory, with the rest devoted to practice and seminar-based drills. The program is designed for trainees with zero prior knowledge.
“People come very different. Some had training in civilian life, some prepared. But most still learn from scratch. Therefore, the course is built in such a way as to provide knowledge to a person who knows nothing — to bring them to a certain level of preparedness”, — Severyn explained.
He noted that the number of medical skills taught in BGMT has significantly increased. Training has become much more extensive, so simply ‘do one, do two, do three’ is not enough. People must understand why they do it and when it must never be done.
“It is a whole range of skills. I once counted — it came out to around 30–40 skills that a person must master during the course. These are specific mechanical actions: applying a tourniquet, performing wound packing, securing the packing, and so on. It is quite a large volume”, — Oleksandr Severyn noted.
The war, Severyn emphasized, is now a source for analysis and changes to existing protocols — not only domestic, but also Western ones. The whole world is learning by watching us. That is why recruit training is constantly updated.
“Changes are constant. Therefore, ideally, medical training should be repeated at least once a year. This is not a bicycle that you learn to ride once and never fall again. Mechanics are forgotten, nuances are forgotten — and those nuances are actually critical. Because here, every nuance matters”, — the Staff Sergeant concluded.
