Day 17

Well today was a tough day of death by powerpoint. It started out with a presentation on Physical Disabilities and the process of how we could be get a profile if we had an injury. Most importantly for us as health care professionals how do we take care of our patients and get them profiles and ratings that they need so they can still be a part of the military if they choose to. Our second lecture was on Patient Movement and the process and timeline of how we move patients from Role I>II>III and so on. We also learned about moving patients between intra-theater care and when we would need to move them inter-theater or out of the combat zone. Our last lecture of the day which took just over 5 hours (with fortunately a hour break for lunch) was our JAG (Judge Advocate General) lecture. We learned about Standards of Conduct, which is how we are suppose to act ethically as professionals and officers in the Army. We also learned about what time of gifts we can and cannot accept, it basically came down to it is better not to accept gifts from strangers. Next we covered Military Justice, this was all about how not to get court martialed, reprimands or article 15's. In this section we also covered how to handle our subordinates that might be facing these charges.  Law of Armed Conflict/The Law of War is what we covered next. We covered ROE's (Rules of Engagement) how we are to treat POW's (prisoners of war) civilians, their property and the Geneva Convention which basically covers all of those points anyways. I think the toughest thing about this section and what really sets America apart from other countries is that no matter how our enemies might act and not follow the rules of the Geneva Convention we are still expected to be better than them and fight the right way. This point, which was stressed is what has got some of our soldiers into trouble in the past. This section also covered what our responsibilities would be if we were ever POW's. I really thought that it was interesting that outside of the 4 things we are required to give (rank, name, service and social) we are not suppose to give any other information and we are to actively resist and try to escape and help others escape. Finally, we covered Medical Negligence in the Military Setting. This was especially interesting because this causes a lot of issues in the civilian world with worrying about lawsuits and other repercussions from issues with our patients. The militaries requirement for finding negligence is the same for the civilian world, you have to have show 5 things: Duty, a breach of that duty, causation, injury and damages, if you are going to be successfully with a case. The other interesting thing from this section was that family members can seek damages but Active Duty personnel are unable to sue the U.S. government despite any wrong doing. Overall, that was our day, tomorrow we have to be up bright and early and then we will be in class all day. Thankfully tomorrow we will be in our platoons so it will be more individualized and maybe not be such a long day. Thanks again to all of my new followers and I hope you continue to enjoy the blog!