The MCM course consists of several modules designed to build on prior experiences in medical school to focus on application in a deployed military setting. This includes support of all military services in joint and multi-national roles. It is considered a clinical clerkship, which draws on knowledge from the basic medical sciences, clinical sciences experienced in the junior and early senior years, and prior courses in military medicine taught by the Department of Military and Emergency Medicine. Initiate students to the concept of approaching problems with expedient management in mind, much in the way that emergency physicians approach patients in hospitals.
Topics center on environments in which military medicine is practiced in deployed settings.
Historical and contemporary missions, political considerations, international laws of armed conflict, rules of engagement, and ethical dilemmas are some of the issues discussed. USU is one of only a few medical schools in the United States that offer ATLS to their students during the normal curriculum. However, the focus of ATLS is necessarily on initial management of trauma victims in established hospitals in the United States. Subsequent MCM presentations discuss differences between injuries in the civilian setting and military combat trauma in the potentially resource-limited and medically austere setting of a deployment. Students are challenged to develop management plans in medically austere settings ranging from situations where all equipment must be improvised to those with only basic or limited resources to mobile medical treatment facilities.