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INDEPENDENT ADvISOR’S REvIEw AND REPORT n 9
in the future. Finally, he congratulated the NATO and guidance of Dr. Foster representing the
SOF medical community in the significant prog- NATO Human Factors and Medicine Panel
ress made in the past 2 years to form a vibrant col- chaired by Dr. Eric Fosse (NOR).
laborative network that shares ideas and concepts
with the potential to transform NATO medicine.
The workshop charge was given—to provide the n 3.2 Summary of Presentations
best advice possible to the NATO Surgeon Gen-
erals (i.e., the NATO Committee of the Chiefs of 3.2.1 NATO SOF Medicine Challenges
Military Medical Services [COMEDS]) to build and Opportunities
SOF medical training capability and enhance LTC (Dr.) Irizarry outlined the challenges indi-
interoperability while ensuring optimal care of vidual national SOF medical leaders face devel-
combat casualties. oping and maintaining SOF medical systems
commensurate to today’s combat casualty require-
After introducing his Co-Chair, COL (Dr.) An- ments. These challenges include:
nette Hildabrand (USA) and RWS Mentor, Dr.
Robert Foster (USA), LTC (Dr.) Daniel Irizarry, n Variable support efforts from SOF command-
NSHQ Medical Advisor, introduced the HFM ers and surgeons general
expert panel members and the 15 countries SOF- n Relatively small size of SOF compared with
MEP representatives selected by their national their conventional counterparts
surgeon general and SOF command. n Limited number of SOF medics, physicians,
and other healthcare providers
LTC (Dr.) Irizarry then reviewed the workshop’s n Financial and legal constraints
two-tiered design (Figure 3.1):
National SOF elements require interoperability
1. The SOFMEP members and their national for joint multinational Alliance operations. Lan-
colleagues guage differences, minimal shared doctrine, and
2. The HFM Expert Panel—medical simula- variability between the nation’s capabilities and
tion and training experts selected from aca- authorities significantly impact NATO’s abil-
demia, industry, government, military, and ity to medically support SOF operations. The
SOF medical backgrounds with the advice SOF fluid, unpredictable environment requires
missions in austere conditions with limited per-
Figure 3.1 Workshop’s two-tiered design. sonnel, infrastructure, and prolonged evacuation
chains, which increases mission complexity.
The RWS discussed how these factors affect med-
ical training. Nations noted that the lack of a
standardization agreement delineating NSOCM
training requirements is a key barrier to inter-
operability. Some progress was made toward this
step at the October 2011 NATO SOF Medic
Curriculum Workshop. At this workshop fifteen
nations agreed on 164 minimum NSOCM tasks
that serve as a basis for a standardized curricu-
lum and standardization agreement. It was also
