Editorial

Excerpt

The focus of this issue is on some aspects of disasters and military surgery which should be of interest to many readers. The never-ending local and regional military conflicts worldwide, the ever-present terrorist threat against civilians, and the relentless and occasionally dramatic natural disasters that continue to plague our world remind us as surgeons that we need to be prepared to cope with them. The key to preparedness is awareness and training, and we have a major role to play there, together with colleagues from different disciplines in the field of disaster medicine. Multiple-trauma patients are often the end result of many of these man-made and natural major incidents or mass casualty events (MCIs). A broad field of knowledge and expertise has been built during the last several decades as a consequence of reports from MCIs and military conflicts, and we continue to gather information on a yearly basis. This knowledge will undoubtedly contribute a great deal to mitigate the impact and suffering caused by these events in the near future. …