Field hospital

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A field hospital is a large mobile medical unit that temporarily takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent hospital facilities. The concept was inherited from the battlefield (such as the MASH: mobile army surgical hospital), and is now applied in case of disasters or massive accidents, as well as the traditional military usage.

A field hospital is a medical staff with a mobile medical kit and, often, a wide tent-like shelter (at times an inflatable structure in modern usage) so it can be readily set up near the source of the casualties. In an urban environment, the field hospital is often established in an easily accessible and highly visible building (e.g. restaurant, school, etc.). In case of an airborne structure, the mobile medical kit is often placed in normalized container; the container itself is then used as shelter.

[edit] See also

• Combat support hospital
• Field hospitals (France)

[edit] External links

• The Journey, by surgeon E. T. Rulison, Jr., M.D., F.A.C.S., firsthand account and photographs of the 51st Evacuation Hospital during World War II
• The Nurses of the 51st Evac Hospital In WWII, by nurse First Lieutenant Tillie (Horath) Kehrer, firsthand account and photographs of the 51st Evacuation Hospital during World War II
• http://www.pklhealthcare.co.uk/field_hospitals.asp Supplier of field hospitals to the US Army