General surgery is a surgical specialty that focuses on abdominal contents including esophagus, stomach, small bowel, colon, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, appendix and bile ducts, and often the thyroid gland. They also deal with diseases involving the skin, breast, soft tissue, trauma, peripheral vascular surgery and hernias and perform endoscopic procedures such as gastroscopy and colonoscopy.
Humanitarian aid workers belonging to United Nations organisations, PVOs / NGOs or the Red Cross / Red Crescent have traditionally enjoyed both international legal protection, and de facto immunity from attack by belligerent parties. However, attacks on humanitarian workers have occasionally occurred, and became more frequent since the 1990s and 2000s. In 2012 there were 167 incidents of major violence against aid workers and in 2013 there were 474 attacks. This is attributed to a number of factors, including the increasing number of humanitarian workers deployed, the increasingly unstable environments in which they work, and the erosion of the perception of neutrality and independence. In 2012, road travel was seen to be most dangerous and kidnappings of aid workers have quadrupled in the decade with more aid workers victims of kidnapping than any other form of attack. ICRC promotes a framework for Neutral Independent Humanitarian Action (NIHA) to enable differentiated role understanding.
A field hospital is a small mobile medical unit, or mini hospital, that temporarily takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term is used overwhelmingly with reference to military situations, but may also be used in times of disaster. The concept was inherited from the battlefield and is now applied in case of disasters or major accidents, as well as with traditional military medicine.
Karl Franz Gebhardt was a German medical doctor and a war criminal during World War II. He served as Medical Superintendent of the Hohenlychen Sanatorium, Consulting Surgeon of the Waffen-SS, Chief Surgeon in the Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police, and personal physician to Heinrich Himmler.
Combat medic or field medic is a US term for military personnel who have been trained to at least an EMT-B level, and are responsible for providing first aid and frontline trauma care on the battlefield. They are also responsible for providing continuous medical care in the absence of a readily available physician, including care for disease and battle injuries. Combat medics are normally co-located with the combat troops they serve in order to easily move with the troops and monitor ongoing health. Other countries have similar services, but this article is primarily concerned with the US provision.
Marcel Junod was a Swiss doctor and one of the most accomplished field delegates in the history of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). After medical school and a short position as a surgeon in Mulhouse, France, he became an ICRC delegate and was deployed in Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and in Europe as well as in Japan during World War II. In 1947, he wrote a book with the title Warrior without Weapons about his experiences. After the war, he worked for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as chief representative in China, and settled back in Europe in 1950. He founded the anaesthesiology department of the Cantonal Hospital in Geneva and became the first professor in this discipline at the University of Geneva. In 1952, he was appointed a member of the ICRC and, after many more missions for this institution, was Vice-President from 1959 until his death in 1961.
Dr. Théodore Maunoir was a Swiss surgeon and co-founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Nikolay Nilovich Burdenko was a Russian and Soviet surgeon, the founder of Russian neurosurgery. He was Surgeon-General of the Red Army (1937–1946), an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, an academician and the first director of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944–1946), a Hero of Socialist Labor, Colonel General of medical services, and a Stalin Prize winner (1941). He was a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, First World War, Winter War and the Great Patriotic War.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland, and a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signatories) to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005 have given the ICRC a mandate to protect victims of international and internal armed conflicts. Such victims include war wounded, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants.
Khalil Suleiman was a Palestinian doctor in Jenin in the West Bank. He was head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society Emergency Medical Service in Jenin.
Arbi Alautdinovich Barayev was a Chechen warlord, who in 1996 became the founder and first leader of the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR) in Chechnya.
The ICRC Hospital of Novye Atagi is an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital in Novye Atagi, Chechnya, Russian Federation. It was evacuated in December 1996 when six members of the expatriate team were assassinated during an early morning raid by an unidentified armed group.
Various international and local diplomatic and humanitarian efforts in the Somali Civil War have been in effect since the conflict first began in the early 1990s. The latter include diplomatic initiatives put together by the African Union, the Arab League and the European Union, as well as humanitarian efforts led by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP), the Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF) and the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS).
Princess Vera Ignatievna Gedroits was a Russian doctor of medicine and author. She was the first female military surgeon in Russia, the first female professor of surgery, and the first woman to serve as a physician in the Imperial Palace of Russia. She is remembered as a pioneer in applying laparotomy for the treatment of abdominal wounds on the battle front. Her success with rapid surgical intervention played a part in changing international military medical policy. She wrote poetry and prose, although according to Konstantin Fedin her best works were her fictionalized autobiographical stories.
The term military medicine has a number of potential connotations. It may mean:
The Samashki massacre was an incident which occurred on April 7–8, 1995, in the village of Samashki, at the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. Numerous villagers died at the hands of Russian paramilitary troops, many of them reportedly drunk or drugged, under the command of Gen. Anatoly Kulikov. The incident attracted wide attention in Russia and abroad.
Edward William Archibald was a Canadian surgeon. Archibald was born in Montreal, Quebec, and received his initial education in Grenoble, France. Upon returning to Canada, he attended McGill University, receiving his Doctor of Medicine there in 1896. Archibald became interested in the specialist field of surgery, and began an apprenticeship at Royal Victoria Hospital. After a year in Europe studying under two well known physicians, the young surgeon was appointed to the staff of the Royal Victoria Hospital's Department of Surgical Pathology. However, Archibald became ill with tuberculosis, and moved to New York City for treatment. Upon his recovery, the surgeon returned to Royal Victoria Hospital. There, he developed what he had learned in Europe, and came to be dubbed Canada's first neurosurgeon.
Medical Neutrality refers to a principle of noninterference with medical services in times of armed conflict and civil unrest: physicians must be allowed to care for the sick and wounded, and soldiers must receive care regardless of their political affiliations; all parties must refrain from attacking and misusing medical facilities, transport, and personnel. Concepts comprising the principles of medical neutrality derive from international human rights law, medical ethics and humanitarian law. Medical neutrality may be thought of as a kind of social contract that obligates societies to protect medical personnel in both times of war and peace, and obligates medical personnel to treat all individuals regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or political affiliation. Violations of medical neutrality constitute crimes outlined in the Geneva Conventions.
The Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS) is a non-political, independent humanitarian organization in Somalia and is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
