AMSUS: UK military medicine used lessons of the battlefield to save lives during African Ebola crisis

British Maj. Gen. Martin Bricknell, director of Medical Policy and Operational Capability with the U.K. Ministry of Defence, chatted with retired Navy Vice Adm. Michael Cowan, the executive director of AMSUS (The Society of Federal Health Professionals) and a former Navy surgeon general, just before Bricknell’s presentation at the AMSUS 2016 meeting at National Harbor near Washington, D.C., Dec. 2, 2016.

british Maj. Gen. Martin Bricknell, director of Medical Policy and Operational Capability with the U.K. Ministry of Defence, chatted with retired Navy Vice Adm. Michael Cowan, the executive director of AMSUS (The Society of Federal Health Professionals) and a former Navy surgeon general, just before Bricknell’s presentation at the AMSUS 2016 meeting at National Harbor near Washington, D.C., Dec. 2, 2016.

Bricknell said lessons learned during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan benefitted Britain's military medical system when humanitarian efforts arose including the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014. In particular, he said the “macro-simulation,” a process where a battlefield hospital is set up to give military doctors a realistic feel of what to expect before going downrange, gave them great insight to use in Africa. “So when we got on the ground in Liberia, we had a credible western style of facility to enable the international community to have a decent facility there,” said Bricknell.

Bricknell was a student of Cowan’s when the admiral was with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences 30 years ago.