Military Medical Care in T2K

[Legbreaker]

Really it's just a safety issue. What would happen if somebody died from a drug which was supposed to be still good Pulling back the expiry date is supposed to offset poor storage practises.
Sure the pharmaceutical companies get to make and sell more drugs for long term storage, but that's really just a side benefit to them, not an end unto itself.

[Fusilier]

Lots of those expired meds end up being shipped to third world countries to be put back on the shelves.

[Sanjuro]

I read once that during the Napoleonic Wars, if a soldier was wounded badly enough to need hospitalization, he was 98% likely too die of that wound. This improved in irregular steps (the first significant improvement being led by Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War) until the Korean War, when 98% of casualties who reached a MASH survived.
Cleanliness, supportive care and decent shelter will significantly improve the odds a casualty can survive- but take the modern gear and drugs if you can!

[Raellus]

A big problem is going to be in the "Golden hour." As I understand it, current trauma specialists can heal an awful lot of damage if they can get to a victim within an hour of the injury. Without air or ground ambulances, that looks pretty grim. I think a lot more people will die of bleeding out or shock than we see currently, but the general medical knowledge might bring things back to the WW2 level of wound survival.

I agree. I also wonder how many skilled trauma specialists would be around c. 2000. The area behind the FBS is supposed to be safer (relatively speaking) but with all the tactical nukes and chem rounds that were being lobbed about between '97 and 2000, I'm sure that more than a few field hospitals were obliterated. Also, I wonder what a skilled trauma specialist could do without a lot of the modern tools that they currently rely upon.

I think that VC/NVA field hospitals would provide a good model for the best medical care a wounded soldier could receive in the T2KU, c. 2000. I haven't come across particularly detailed descriptions of such facilities and personnel but many books I've read allude to the wonders that Vietnamese doctors performed by lamplight in subterranean jungle hospitals. I'd love to learn more about this.

[pmulcahy11b]

I agree. I also wonder how many skilled trauma specialists would be around c. 2000. The area behind the FBS is supposed to be safer (relatively speaking) but with all the tactical nukes and chem rounds that were being lobbed about between '97 and 2000, I'm sure that more than a few field hospitals were obliterated. Also, I wonder what a skilled trauma specialist could do without a lot of the modern tools that they currently rely upon.

By Soviet doctrine, that's the area where Warsaw Pact Airborne, Air Assault, and special ops go to hunt...er, I mean conduct raids.