The PLA-Wide Physician Corps Accelerates Its Transformation Toward Combat Orientation
PLA Daily Report by Li Yongfeng and reporter Sun Xingwei: On training grounds, dressed in camouflage, they perform precise intravenous punctures and other procedures; along border defense lines, they traverse mountains and ridges, entering outposts to conduct medical rounds and deliver medicine… In recent years, PLA medical and health institutions have focused on their primary responsibility of supporting combat readiness and warfighting, guiding the physician corps to step out of the clinic and go to the front lines of units to forge hard support capabilities, practicing the physician's original mission (医者初心) in service to the grassroots, breaking through health service and support (卫勤) challenges through scientific research, and driving the physician corps to accelerate its transformation toward combat orientation (向战为战转型).
"Wherever the battlefield is, health service and support extends there." The PLA-wide physician corps is fully integrated into the front lines of realistic combat exercises and training (实战化演训), forging battlefield casualty treatment capabilities. Medical and health institutions at all levels are concentrating efforts on emergency treatment, driving the physician corps to achieve a capability leap toward "integrated peacetime and wartime" (平战一体) readiness. The Joint Logistic Support Force organized physicians from its subordinate hospitals to conduct skills competitions centered on realistic combat subjects such as battlefield casualty treatment and medical evacuation, effectively tempering battlefield treatment capabilities. A combined arms army hospital of the Army assembled a team of young and middle-aged medical doctors to form a combat trauma treatment team, which conducts realistic health service and support treatment drills using simulation training platforms, continuously raising the level of combat trauma treatment.
PLA medical and health institutions are actively building scientific research and innovation platforms for physicians, guiding physicians to convert support shortfalls and the needs of officers and soldiers into research topics. The Burn and Plastic Surgery Department team of a medical center under the PLA General Hospital has sustained research efforts to establish a technical system for the treatment of critically severe burns and overcome the technical challenge of autologous skin recycling and reconstruction; the High-Altitude Military Medicine Innovation Team of Army Medical University has conducted research on the pathogenesis, prevention, and treatment of altitude sickness, providing a scientific basis for evaluating the combat effectiveness of troops; the Spine Surgery team of an affiliated hospital of Naval Medical University has focused on the prevention and treatment of spinal injuries and diseases, innovating and establishing original surgical techniques.
The Logistic Support Department of the Central Military Commission, in coordination with multiple departments, has issued more than ten policies on health service and support (卫勤) talent cultivation, institutionally arranging for backbone physicians from military hospitals to serve in temporary positions (代职) in units, and regularly organizing unit health service and support officers to train at hospitals, promoting the rational flow of physicians across institutions at different levels. At the same time, the PLA-wide physician corps routinely deploys to the front lines to conduct medical rounds and deliver medicine, driving quality medical resources to reach directly to combat positions (战位). Expert teams from hospitals affiliated with Army Medical University have compiled first-aid manuals and trained grassroots health service and support backbone personnel; a special medical center of the Air Force organized experts in integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine orthopedics to go deep into aviation units to conduct treatment, effectively promoting the rehabilitation of flight personnel from training injuries.
A relevant official from the Health Bureau of the Logistic Support Department of the Central Military Commission stated that the next steps will be to continuously advance the transformation of the PLA-wide physician corps toward combat orientation: shifting assessment standards toward "battlefield treatment success rate," shifting evaluation orientation toward "contribution rate to winning," and shifting talent cultivation toward "unified management and shared use, dispatched support" (统管共用、派出保障), providing solid health service and support backing for units' combat readiness and warfighting.