SBIR-STTR Award

The vast majority of casualties who die in combat do so before they reach a definitive care facility highlighting the role of the combat medic. The recent change of policy, lifting the ban on women serving in combat arms makes it likely that the number of females serving in combat roles will increase in the future. Data from recent conflicts has shown that female casualties have suffered a greater proportion of thoracic and abdominal injuries, a higher incidence of failure of needle decompression, and a higher probability of death from combat wounds than their male counterparts. These factors, which may have causation in anatomical/physiological differences between the sexes and/or in cultural or psychological factors, point to an urgent need to develop improved methods to train combat medics in the care of female casualties. Operative Experience Incorporated proposes to undertake the preliminary design and development of a simulation-based training system to improve the cognitive and psychomotor skills of combat medics in the management of severely-injured female combat casualties at the point of injury. The simulation-based system will be founded upon the development of a unique, modular, physical model of a female combatant with unprecedented anatomical and surgical realism of the tissues.

The training of combat medics in Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) has focused principally on the treatment of male casualties. A recent change of policy, lifting the ban on women serving in combat arms makes it likely that the number of women serving in combat roles will increase in the foreseeable future. The risk of female wounding and death will rise as well. For unknown reasons, female casualties have had a higher mortality probability than males in recent conflicts. This finding points to an urgent operational need and a moral obligation to develop improved methods to train combat medics in in the care of female casualties. One required improvement is the development of more realistic simulators to provide medics with enhanced training and experience in the management of female combat casualties. Existing female casualty simulators are unrealistic, doll-like manikins. Operative Experience Incorporated (OEI) has had extensive, DoD-funded, prior experience in developing highly-realistic trauma training systems for combat surgeons and medics. The company proposes to develop a female TCCC simulator with unprecedented anatomical fidelity and modularity to support improved medic training in the care of female casualties.