The majority of military training and education for combat casualty care has focused on care in the deployed setting. However, combat casualty care does not stop there. Service members injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom frequently spent months at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Brooke Army Medical Center, Naval Medical Center San Diego, and other medical treatment facilities receiving surgical limb salvage, reconstruction, and restoration. The FAST-LT course concentrates on the continuum of care in these critical surgical skill areas from the Role 2-4 to ensure that knowledge is not lost between conflicts.

The 2023 Federal Advanced Skills Training-Limb Trauma course collaboratively hosted by Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the Joint Trauma System and the Extremity Trauma and Amputation Center of Excellence is a three-day, hybrid training event featuring Military Health System and civilian experts and leaders in vascular, orthopedic, and plastic surgery, and multidisciplinary rehabilitation.

Day one focuses on vascular surgical skills for advanced combat surgical readiness as well as rehabilitation best practices. Topics include vascular imaging, REBOA, hemorrhage control and vascular shunting among others.

Day two focuses on plastic surgical skills for advanced combat surgical readiness as well as rehabilitation best practices. Topics include basic flaps and tissue advancements, burn management, skin grafts, and advanced local techniques among others.

Day three focuses on orthopedic surgical skills for advanced combat surgical readiness as well as rehabilitation best practices. Topics include ACS and fasciotomies, tendon repair, dislocations and hand injuries and pinning among others.

Click the day course links below to open/download the course presentations.

FAST-LT – Day 1 (5 videos)

• War Surgery: from Aleppo to Kyiv
• Interpretation of Vascular Imaging
• Fundamentals of Angiography
• Emergency Shunting of the Extremities
• Vascular Anastomosis Basic
• Exposures Made Simple
• REBOA for Limb Salvage
• Hemorrhage Control
• Selection of Emergency Conduit
• Resuscitative Thoracotomies for Ortho

FAST-LT – Day 2 (5 videos)

• Introductory speaker
• Disaster Cases
• General Principles of Reconstruction
• Basic Flaps and Tissue Advancements
• Advanced Vacs
• Skin Grafts
• Advanced Local Techniques

FAST-LT – Day 3 (4 videos)

• Nightmare cases
• When Not to Ex-Fix- Splinting and Traction
• External Fixation for Non-Orthopods
• Acute Compartment Syndrome and Fasciotomies
• Tendon Repair
• Pelvic Packing and Fracture Management in Combat Pelvis Injuries
• Dislocations (and Ortho Sports Injuries) for Dummies
• Hand Injuries and Pinning
• Amputations When You Have To: Why and How?