[Wounded in action: the platinum ten minutes and the golden hour].

In the battlefield, the majority of casualties die within ten minutes of the trauma. Most injuries result from an explosion and haemorrhage plays a central role. To improve survival rates, the French Army Health Service has developed a chain of survival from the battlefield to France based on prehospital combat casualty care, forward medical support during the first hour and damage control surgery.

Predeployment training for forward medicalisation in a combat zone: the specific policy of the French Military Health Service.

Introduction: To improve the mortality rate on the battlefield, and especially the potentially survivable pre-Medical Treatment Facility deaths, Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) is now considered as a reference for management of combat casualty from the point of injury to the first medical treatment facility. TCCC comprises of a set of trauma management guidelines designed for use on the battlefield. The French Military Health Service also standardised a dedicated training programme, entitled "Sauvetage au Combat" (SC) ("forward combat casualty care"), with the characteristic of forward medicalisation on the battlefield, the medical team being projected as close as possible to the casualty at the point of injury.

Brief report: pulmonary auscultation in the operating room: a prospective randomized blinded trial comparing electronic and conventional stethoscopes.

Background: We compared the subjective quality of pulmonary auscultation between 2 acoustic stethoscopes (Holtex Ideal® and Littmann Cardiology III®) and an electronic stethoscope (Littmann 3200®) in the operating room.

Methods: A prospective double-blind randomized study with an evaluation during mechanical ventilation was performed in 100 patients. After each examination, the listeners using a numeric scale (0-10) rated the quality of auscultation.

Quality of postoperative care after major orthopedic surgery is correlated with both long-term cardiovascular outcome and troponin Ic elevation.

Background: The aim of this study performed in patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery was to assess the impact of changes in practice on both the incidence of postoperative myocardial ischemia (PMI) detected by serial measurements of troponin Ic and long-term cardiac outcome.

Methods: During a 3-yr period, troponin Ic was measured on the first 3 days after major orthopedic surgery in a multidisciplinary hospital. After 16 months of study, postoperative care was improved.