JANES said:
St Johns ambulance first aid goes against the majority of what is taught in TCCC. Everything from casualty approach to the use of tourniquets and the non use of CPR, removing dressings if the bleeding is not controled and even pushing bowel back into the gut, all goes against St. Johns teachings. TCCC is as much tactics as it is medicine.
I thought you were a medic. If you look at MCM again, cardiac arrest casualties are lowest priority. Tourniquets are discouraged in St Johns ambulance not disreguarded. As for the bowels back into the gut et al, the reasoning as you should know if you read Lessons Learned, is due to availability of medical aid. Leaving organs out for 72 hrs would definitely cause complications. St Johns Ambulance teaches similar techniques in wilderness first aid as what is proposed in TCCC except for tactical considerations. Tactics is the biggest difference I see between TCCC and St Johns Ambulance.
JANES said:
There is no tactical scope in St Johns, and an advanced first aid instructor won't have the knowledge on anatomy physiology and skills to properly teach it. The new dispatches explains this all well. It is what TCCC is trying to get away from. It is great for the Gari-trooper that wants to get their CDS commendation for doing CPR on some fat civi who had a heart attack at McDonalds, but I see no scope for for the cross over. It would be going backwards.
So what you are saying is that medics know tactics and medicine well enough to teach this course! I have seen few medics that can teach anything about tactics and even fewer that are attached to Coys in the infantry. As for knowledge about anatomy, I took physiology in university and somehow passed yet me is just a sig op. You expect to teach infanteers this knowledge yet you say they could not teach it once they were qualified?
As for Gari-troopers, tell that to MCpl Hamilton and Cpl Matthews who crawled through minefields to reach Sgt Short, Cpl Beerenfinger and Cpl Stirling (who they were able to treat and enabled him to survive possibly) and have been announced as being awarded the Star of Courage. Yet they did this with only the St. Johns Ambulance course.
I think that first aid instructors would be able to get the anatomy knowledge down. I know what a presure point is, what a flailed chest is, and other injuries are and building on what we already know would be better for us all. Things like standards should and must be controlled by medics as they should be the ones that are the best trained for combat first aid. We would be the ones who would have to carry out the first aid in combat situations. In our trade, we are often sent out on RRBs where we are left on our own accord. We ussually have no medics and if the vehicle is downed, we may have to defend our location until reinforcements and casevac arrive. Can the medics train 1 in 8 to be a TCCC soldier especially if a Battle Group of 2500 is departing to lets say, Afghanistan? I know a lot of first aid instructors that are more trained in medical care than medics. Plse don't downplay the role this training provides.
Further to that, most of my time in the military has been spent in Canada. TCCC would not be the best method of treating wounds in this case as medical aid would be brought in within one hour. The procedures outline in St Johns first aid would be the best steps to follow. As for saving someone at McDs, should we not try to preserve life of all Cnd people? Do we only protect people who meet our fitness criteria? If you are a medic, do you only treat people who get injured while you are on duty? I enjoyed learning Children CPR as it was something I could do if my child ever suffered an injury that caused their hearts to stop such as electrocution.