Humanitarian Aid Workers: The Forgotten First Responders.

Humanitarian aid workers are an overlooked population within the structure of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research and assistance. This negligence is an industry-wide failure to address aid workers' psychological health issues. The suspected numbers of death by suicide, diagnosed PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders, hazardous alcohol and drug consumption, emotional exhaustion, and other stress-related problems are impossible to quantify but are considered endemic. Tools for establishing organizational frameworks for mental health and psychosocial support are readily available. However, the capacity to implement this assistance requires the creation and practice of an open and non-judgmental culture, based on the realistic acceptance that aid work has become inherently dangerous. The possibility of developing a psychological problem because of aid work has increased along with the rise in levels of disease, injury, kidnapping, and assault. As a result, expressions of traumatic stress have become the norm rather than an exception. This commentary outlines the essential steps and components necessary to meet these requirements.

Elective neurosurgical humanitarian care in a deployed setting.

OBJECTIVEActive-duty neurosurgical coverage has been provided at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan since 2007. Early operative logs were reflective of a large number of surgical procedures performed to treat battlefield injuries. However, with maturation of the war effort, the number of operations for battlefield injuries has decreased with time. Consequently, procedures performed for elective neurosurgical humanitarian care (NHC) increased in number and complexity prior to closure of the Korean Hospital in 2015, which resulted in effective termination of NHC at Bagram. Monthly neurosurgical caseloads for deployed personnel have dropped precipitously since this time, renewing a debate as to whether the benefits of providing elective NHC in Afghanistan outweigh the costs of such a strategy. To date, there is a paucity of information in the literature discussing the overall context of such a determination.METHODSThe author retrospectively reviewed his personal database of all patients who underwent neurosurgical procedures at Bagram during his deployment there from April 17 to October 29, 2014. Standardized clinical parameters had been recorded in the ABNS NeuroLog system. All cases of nonelective surgical care for battlefield injuries were identified and excluded. Records of all other procedures, which represented elective NHC delivered during this period, were accessed to extract salient clinical and radiological data.RESULTSDuring the 6-month deployment, 49 patients (29 male and 20 female, age range 18 months to 63 years) were treated by the author in elective NHC. Procedures were performed for spinal degenerative disease (n = 28), cranial tumors (n = 11), pediatric conditions (n = 6), Pott's disease (n = 2), peripheral nerve impingement (n = 1), and adult hydrocephalus (n = 1). The duration of follow-up ranged from 3 to 23 weeks. Complications referable to surgery included asymptomatic, unilateral lumbar screw fracture detected 3 months postoperatively and treated with revision of hardware (n = 1); wound infection requiring cranial flap explantation and staged cranioplasty (n = 1); and unanticipated return to the operating room for resection of residual tumor in a patient with a solitary metastatic lesion involving the mesial temporal lobe/ambient cistern (n = 1). There were no instances of postoperative neurological decline.CONCLUSIONSElective NHC can be safely and effectively implemented in the deployed setting. Benefits of a military strategy that supports humanitarian care include strengthening of the bond between the US/Afghan military communities and the local civilian population as well as maintenance of skills of the neurosurgical team during the sometimes-lengthy intervals between cases in which emergent neurosurgical care is provided for treatment of battlefield injuries.

Modern teaching of military surgery: why and how to prepare the orthopaedic surgeons before deployment? The French experience.

PURPOSE: Improved survival of combat casualties in modern conflicts is especially due to early access to damage control resuscitation and surgery in forward surgical facilities. In the French Army, these small mobile units are staffed with one general surgeon and one orthopaedic surgeon who must be able to perform any kind of trauma or non trauma emergency surgery. METHODS: This concept of forward surgery requires a solid foundation in general surgery which is no longer provided by the current surgical programs due to an early specialization of the residents. Obviously a specific training is needed in war trauma due to the special pathology and practice, but also in humanitarian care which is often provided in military field facilities. RESULTS: To meet that demand the French Military Health Service Academy created an Advanced Course for Deployment Surgery (ACDS), also called CACHIRMEX (Cours Avancé de CHIRurgie en Mission EXtérieure). Since 2007 this course is mandatory for young military surgeons before their first deployment. Orthopaedic trainees are particularly interested in learning war damage control orthopaedic tactics, general surgery life-saving procedures and humanitarian orthopaedic surgery principles in austere environments. CONCLUSION: Additional pre-deployment training was recently developed to improve the preparation of mobile surgical teams, as well as a continuing medical education for any active-duty or reserve surgeon to be deployed.

Ser agente de salud y el cuidado humanitario. Contribuyendo a su transformación / Being a health agent and the humanitarian care. Con- tributing to its transformation

El cuidado humanitario es un acto del ser, susceptible de evolucionar y conformar una unidad de cuidado a la salud con calidad para todos y requiere también de cuidado para no perder su valor de sentido positivo. Conciliar teoría y práctica no es simple, sino complejo. En este artículo se propone atender la relación Agente de Salud­Paciente por ser universal y congruente con el cambio. El enfoque epistemológico puntualiza lo positivo, lo acumulado en la historia no puede desaparecer del presente. La respuesta es integración, hacer coincidir las ciencias formales, con las sociales, humanas y la tecnología. El apoyo cultural es vital, la educación es sólo parte y convoca a construir el nuevo paradigma; al invocarlo se superan las acciones ineficaces. El acto preventivo es a todos los niveles, sea del hospital, la escuela, la comunidad el hogar y la comunidad entera. La Enfermería del futuro, con su desarrollo teórico, contribuye al cambio, del cuidado reduccionista al integral y humanitario. Se propone reforzar la atención al desempeño del Agente de Salud y orientarlo con la disposición Humanitaria. El tema profundiza en el conocimiento del cuidado y le concierne a todo profesional de la salud.

The humanitarian care is an act, the being who may evolve and transformed into a quality unit for everybody's health care. Requires attention, good care, and not to lose the sense of positive value. Must reconcile theory and practice which is not so simple, it is rather complex. We propose to address the Relationship of Health Agent - Patient to a universal approach consistent with the changing nature. The epistemological approach points out the positive sense. The history accumulated knowledge cannot fail at the present time. The answer is integration, to combine formal sciences with social and human, as well as technology. The cultural support is vital for education and is part of it, calls for the build the new paradigm. To invoke it is sufficient to avoid ineffectiveness. The preventive act is at all levels, whether in hospital, school, community, home and the entire community. The future nursing, with the care models, should contribute to shift from the reductionist care to the humanitarian care. Let us reinforce the Health Agent performance and guide it towards a Humanitarian Care. The issue analyzes the care knowledge and is of every health server concern.

The influence of humanitarian care on the depression and the anxiety of patients before they receive their abdominal surgery / 中国基层医药

Objective To investigate the influence of humanitarian care on the depression and the anxiety of patients before they receive their abdominal surgery. Methods 98 patients were randomly derided into the experi-ment group and the control group and each group consisted of 49 patients. Humanitarian care was conducted in the ex-periment group while the control group only implemented the traditional functional nursing. Self-rating Depression Scale and Self-rating Anxiety Scale were used as the evaluation tools. Results The depression and the anxiety values of patients in the experiment group were obviously lower than those in the control group. Comparing both groups (P <0.05), such difference was of statistical significance. Conclusion The humanitarian care can reduce the feeling of depression and anxiety of patients, which is good for the recovery after surgery.