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Groundbreaking Military Health System Partnership Led by Dr. Peggy Knudson Reports on New Projects and Initiatives

UCSF Department of Surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General - by Richard Barg - August 25, 2018

Fostering Military Medical Readiness and Rapid Civilian Mass Casualty/Disaster Response

The Military Health System Strategic Partnership with the American College of Surgeons (MHSSPACS) has advanced multiple projects designed to improve military readiness and bolster the performance of permanent civilian trauma institutions. UCSF trauma surgeon M. Margaret “Peggy” Knudson, M.D., FACS is the partnership's medical director. Based at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG), Dr. Knudson, herself a visiting trauma surgeon in both the Iraq and Afghanistan war theaters, is a professor of surgery in the Division of General Surgery at UCSF.

In August 2018, the partnership reported in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons on its deliberations and findings at its December 2017 meeting. The partnership's mission includes maintaining a fully integrated military-civilian trauma system that will train military surgeons prior to deployment, retaining critical skills of military surgeons learned while deployed, and bringing lessons from battlefield stateside to enhance civilian trauma care.

DRB Knudsen Etal Dec 2017 Meeting

Military–Civilian Training Platform Meeting, American College of Surgeons, Washington, DC, December 2017.
Seated in front row - Founding Leadership of Military Health System Strategic Partnership (with the) American College of Surgeons (MHSSPACS)- Brigadier General Jonathan A Woodson, MD, FACS, USAR, M. Margaret Knudson MD, FACS, Medical Director, David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS, Executive Director ACS, and Captain Eric A Elster, MD, FACS, USN

Dr. Knudson spoke recently to Reuters/Medscape about the partnership's progress:

"For the first time in history, a true partnership between the civilian and military surgical communities has been formed in order to both preserve the lessons learned over the past 17 years of conflict as well as to assure that military surgeons are well prepared for deployment," said Dr. M. Margaret (Peggy) Knudson of the University of California, San Francisco, the medical director of MHSSPACS.

"We feel that the best preparation for deployment and for maintaining professional competency in the care of the injured is to have regular exposure to trauma care in the civilian setting," she told Reuters Health by email.

The Clinical Readiness Project, designed to capture and sustain the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to maintain competency, is one of the core efforts. The partnership takes advantage of five existing strategic military-civilian partnerships and several other collaborative platforms that have evolved utilizing trauma centers in close proximity to military bases. The project will seek to remedy the severe shortage of surgeons, including trauma surgeons, faced by the U.S. military.

“Assuring a ready military surgical force strengthens our national security, augments civilian trauma care, and provides surge capacity for man-made and natural disasters wherever they occur,” Dr. Knudson said.

She added, “This project is one of several that have been developed collaboratively through the partnership (MHSSPACS). Other activities involve incorporation of the ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program into Military Treatment Facilities, designing the metrics by which to measure the skills and knowledge points needed for the deploying expeditionary surgeon, and supporting the Excelsior Surgical Society for Military Surgeons.”

Read full story by Reuters Health at Medscape.com