Retired Air Force Col. Jeremy Cannon warned that US military trauma surgeons are suffering from a dangerous lack of operational readiness due to peacetime conditions. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, he highlighted a systematic decline in combat readiness, with only 10% of military surgeons deemed ready for peer conflict scenarios. This starkly contrasts with projections indicating potentially catastrophic casualty rates in future conflicts. Cannon emphasized that many battlefield deaths could be prevented with better-prepared medical personnel, raising alarms about military healthcare systems' capabilities in a major conflict.
"We're actively falling into the trap of the peacetime effect," Ret. Col. Jeremy Cannon said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the state of medical care in the military.
"What is the cost of this erosion? It can be measured in lives lost: one in four battlefield deaths are potentially survivable," wrote Cannon, who was director of the Defense Department's sole trauma center for the most severe, or Level One, injuries.
"Projections estimate that a peer conflict could produce as many as 1,000 casualties per day for 100 days straight or more, a scale not seen since World War II," Cannon said.
"Neither the current MHS nor the civilian sector can absorb this impact," he added, referring to the Military Health System.
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