FAQ about the Tactical Medicine Fellowship

The Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association (EMRA) has an excellent description of tactical medicine on their website:

Authors: Mohammed Kassem, M.D. and Catherine Steger, D.O., for EMRA

• Tactical medicine is the practice of prehospital emergency care specifically designed for the support of high-risk law enforcement operations. Police tactical teams are responsible for an ever-widening scope of responses to critical law enforcement situations, national security threats, anti-terrorism activity, mass gatherings, and disaster response missions. Accordingly, tactical emergency medical support (TEMS) has gained recognition as an essential element of the modern law enforcement mission.
• Tactical medicine augments law enforcement operations by performing medical threat assessments, delivering on-scene emergency medical care, and promoting the safety and health of law enforcement personnel. Tactically trained medical personnel achieve their objectives through mission pre-planning, implementation of clinical practices developed specifically for tactical applications, and provision of a critical interface between law enforcement personnel, conventional EMS, and the existing health care system infrastructure.
• The broad goals of tactical medicine are to facilitate the overall success and safety of law enforcement missions during all phases of a tactical operation through the delivery of preventative, urgent, and emergency medical care. The basic approaches utilized by tactical medicine providers were initially developed by the military, and have been adapted to the civilian law enforcement environment. The primary function of tactical medicine during a mission is to provide broad medical support, including injury prevention, resource identification, allocation and rapid access to emergency medical care within the operation.

EMS fellowships are increasingly including tactical medicine within the curriculum, which is a fantastic development. Tactical medicine requires a different skill set than that of a traditional EMS director. Tactical exposure as a component of an EMS fellowship prepares the fellow to interact with law enforcement agencies on an administrative level, as a tactical medicine fellowship like ours includes the opportunity to attend a Texas Commission on Law Enforcement certified police academy, meaning the fellow will graduate with full peace officer credentials, training that will prepare the fellow for full tactical team integration, on-scene support of SWAT operations, and give adequate focus to the training needs of law enforcement officers.

• Military veterans are encouraged to apply. Skills and experience will be put to good use. Dr. Root left active-duty Army service in 2020. The curriculum is designed for applicants who are starting from the beginning, so prior experience is not a requirement. The Tactical Medicine program is interested in applicants who are committed to the growing field of tactical medicine.
• If you have prior service as a credentialed law enforcement officer, you may not need this fellowship. Feel free to email Dr. Root directly at root@ttuhsc.edu, and you can discuss the tactical medicine specific courses and training that can get you started in the field.

• No, the program will not have physical fitness requirements at this time, but this is not to deemphasize the importance of physical fitness to tactical medicine. The local police department, which is one of the primary agencies we support, published the following testing standards for their academy candidates:
  -Situps: 32 in one minute
  -Pushups: 24 pushups, no time limit
  -100-yard dash: 19 seconds or less
  -One-mile run: 10:49 or less

 

• The program considers this a good minimum starting point for prospective candidates, although higher levels of fitness are encouraged.

As this is a new program, our fellow will be given opportunities to pursue specific interests, attend specialized training courses, and to influence the future direction of the program.