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How the IDF Is Using Lessons from Gaza to Teach the U.S. How to Minimize Its Casualties
(Jewish Chronicle-UK) Anshel Pfeffer - The IDF Medical Corps was properly prepared for the war which began on Oct. 7. IDF Surgeon-General Brig.-Gen. Prof. Elon Glassberg, who last week ended a four-year term encompassing a war and a pandemic, said his doctors and paramedics who served inside the combat zone in Gaza are measured by one metric - CFR (case fatality rate) - the percentage of wounded soldiers evacuated from the battlefield who they failed to save. In the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the CFR stood at 15%. In the Gaza War, the CFR was down to 6.5%. Glassberg explained the reasons for this. "We were much more aggressive in deploying doctors and paramedics in the field. Most militaries usually have a senior medical figure at battalion level. In Gaza we deployed them also at company level, which meant that within minutes of a soldier being wounded they were being treated by a serious professional in the field." "Then we streamlined the evacuation process, changing centuries of military medical practice by eliminating the battalion aid station as the hub of treatment, and instead putting more focus on the initial treatment followed by immediate evacuation by helicopter or armored vehicles to the border and then helicopters home. Third, we developed both powdered plasma and 'whole blood' transfusions which can be used in the field and have been proven to save lives." Glassberg is off to Washington to work with American military medicine experts on sharing the IDF's experience from this war.