The Role of Neurosurgeons in Tactical Emergency Medical Support

Abstract

  In recent years, the global increase in terrorist attacks has generated widespread menace to the safety of citizens. Tactical Emergency Medical Support (TEMS) is a critical component of out-of-hospital response to domestic high-threat incidents such as terrorist attacks and other intentional mass casualty-causing acts. TEMS is based on Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) which is the standard of trauma care in pre-hospital battlefield medicine created by the US Department of Defense Committee on TCCC (Co-TCCC). In this paper, I introduce the outline of TEMS and TCCC, investigate the characteristics of casualties in terrorism, and discuss the role of neurosurgeons in mass casualty incidents such as terrorist attacks.