Most military trauma surgeons did not begin their careers loading jet fuel on a flight line. Col Valerie Sams, MD did. That unconventional path, from Air Force line officer in logistics and fuels to trauma czar at the Bagram role three and now Director of C-STARS Cincinnati, has shaped one of the most clear-eyed voices in military medicine on what it takes to lead, train, and equip the force for the next fight. In this episode of WarDocs — The Military Medicine Podcast, she walks through...

When NASA needed someone to help solve the problem of keeping astronauts alive during a three-year mission to Mars, they called a retired Marine Colonel who had already flown four Space Shuttle missions, completed a dual residency in internal medicine and pediatrics, run an Ebola treatment unit in Liberia, and cared for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. In a conversation recorded from Sydney, Australia, Dr. David Hilmers joined WarDocs to lay out a blueprint for military medicine's most urgent...

What happens when a thousand wounded service members arrive on American soil in a single day — and they keep arriving for a hundred days straight? That is the scenario Dr. Paul D. Biddinger is paid to plan for, and in his WarDocs interview, he delivers a clear-eyed, data-grounded assessment: the U.S. healthcare system is not ready — and it needs to start building that readiness now. The Capacity Crisis Nobody Talks About Dr. Biddinger opens with a fact that reframes the entire LSCO...