Medical Science Publication No. 4, Volume 1

These volumes represent complete notes of a course entitled Recent Advances in Medicine and Surgery conducted by the Army Medical Service Graduate School, 19-30 April 1954. The title is a slight misnomer inasmuch as it was intended by those responsible for the course's design that it reflect primarily the professional experiences, problems encountered and lessons learned by the Army Medical Service during the Korean war. To this end the faculty was selected from individuals "who were there," who met and successfully coped with the actual problems and, as a result, could speak with the authority of personal and intimate knowledge of the subject. The student body was drawn from mature clinicians so that a critical discussion of papers could be had prior to final editing for this volume. The opinions thus collected are presented neither as infallible nor incapable of further improvement. They are, though, considered to be the best thinking on the subject at this time and in a literal sense, constitute a history of the professional and clinical activities of the Army Medical Service in Korea.

It is hoped that the timely publication of these lessons and their general distribution to Reserve training groups, libraries and medical schools, will help to better prepare the next doctors who are called on to treat mass casualties-whether they be as a result of military or civilian disasters.

To the many who participated and gave so unstintingly of time and energies I wish to say-thank you. Sole credit can never be attributed to any single individual for a group type of enterprise but it is desired to make a matter of record the contributions of Colonel William S. Stone, Commandant of the Army Medical Service Graduate School when this course was held. It was he who recognized the need for such a review and who in addition contributed the greatest single share of all the necessary planning and execution from inception to end.

WASHINGTON, D. C., 2 August 1954.