Researchers at MHSRS encouraged to ‘lean forward’ to the point of feeling uncomfortable

Sean Biggerstaff, acting director for the Research and Development directorate for the Defense Health Agency, speaks during a roundtable session with senior medical leaders and representatives of all the services at the Military Health System Research Symposium this week in Kissimmee, Florida.

The battlefield of the future is not the battlefield of the past. Military health researchers need to lean forward and be ready for the changes ahead. These are two of the messages from the Military Health System Research Symposium going on this week in Kissimmee, Florida.

“The challenges that we are going to be facing are global in nature,” said Navy Capt. Joseph Cohn, director of the Research, Development and Acquisition Advanced Development program at the Defense Health Agency. “That means the solutions we produce from research and development need to be equally broad, equally global. We need to be agile and flexible in our solutions. To do that, we need to be willing to take risks, willing to step outside our comfort zones.”

Cohn moderated a roundtable of senior medical leaders from the Army, Navy, Air Force, the Defense Health Agency, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, talking about the medical requirements the future will bring. The roundtable included Navy Rear Adm. Colin Chinn, Joint Staff Surgeon, advising the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on medical issues for all the forces; Navy Capt. Navy Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham, deputy chief, readiness and health, Navy Bureau of Medicine; Dr. Richard Thomas, president, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; Dr. Kenneth Bertram, principal assistant for acquisition, Army Medical, Research and Material Command; Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark Koeniger, 711th Human Performance Wing, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; and Sean Biggerstaff, acting director for the Research and Development directorate for the Defense Health Agency.

“You don’t ever want to feel comfortable as a scientist, because if you are, someone is about to overtake you or the world’s about to change around you, and you’re not going to be prepared for it,” said Biggerstaff, reflecting Cohn’s comments of encouraging researchers at the symposium to lean forward. “What we’re focused on ultimately at the end of the day is to make sure we have in place the ability to transition material products [and] knowledge products into clinical practice.”

Chinn emphasized having medical solutions that reflect the worldwide and multi-dimensional nature of threats against the U.S. military on the horizon.

“The joint force must focus on globally integrated operations, in which a globally postured force can quickly combine, accomplish its mission, and then … go to the next tasking,” said Chinn, who recently became Joint Staff Surgeon after serving as the director of research and development for the Defense Health Agency. “The joint medical force likewise must be able to operate in this environment … [with] health systems that are modular, agile, networked, and interoperable among the services and our coalition partners to support the joint force. The medical research and development community – all of you – must be poised to help develop solutions that are agile [and] integrated.”

Once those solutions are developed, it’s up to organizations, such as the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, to train the doctors, nurses, and care providers how to use these new solutions, said Thomas.

When asked if the current military medicine research and development enterprise is structured to adapt to the speed of modern warfare, Thomas said yes … and no.

“We have improved and come a long way in the last 12 to 15 years, because of the demands on the Military Health System to address those things facing challenges. Taking care of folks is what we do,” he said. “But there’s a long way to go.”

“We need to find innovative ways to get [from ideas] to products quicker,” said Chinn, who also encouraged military medical researchers to look what’s happening at military hospitals and clinics. “Take lessons from that, because we all can do it better.”

The symposium, which concludes Wednesday, brings together more than 2,700 attendees from across the government and academia to focus on the unique medical needs of the military.