This decision is followed by responsibility for the death or life of hundreds of thousands of people,” Mariusz Gierej, spokesman for the Military Institute of Medicine, told PAP, referring to the plans of the Ministry of Defense to reactivate the WAM. He added that civilian and military medicine should not be separated too much.
Mariusz Gierej, spokesman for the Military Institute of Medicine, was asked by PAP for his opinion on the idea of the Ministry of National Defense to reactivate the Military Medical Academy, which was liquidated in 2002. The army is dramatically short of doctors – as he admitted, the army has 829 doctors out of 1419 full-time positions, which is not enough for the currently 200,000-strong armed forces, not to mention those that we would expand to 300-400,000.
Gierej stated that “medicine is medicine” and this was the main argument raised during the liquidation of the Military Medical Academy in 2002. “The question is whether recreating something that was good in the previous political and military reality will be good today, when we have a completely different world and a different army” – he pointed out.
He explained that this model of education – with one military medical school – has been maintained primarily in the countries of the Eastern Bloc, while Western trends are to “do interdisciplinary military medical faculties at the best universities – this is the case in the United States, France, Israel and many other NATO countries, where military doctors have access to the best academic staff” – he stressed.
The spokesman of the Military Institute of Medicine noted that it would be necessary to consider how to supplement the staff of the newly created Military Military Academy and “whether it will not cause a drain of staff, e.g. from military research institutes and military hospitals, not to mention the fact that it will be necessary to compete fiercely for staff with civilian universities”.
He added that another dilemma is the time in which this university will be established, because when the Military Academy of Military Sciences was established in the People’s Republic of Poland, it took 20 years for it to gain full teaching independence. “One can also wonder how this university is supposed to function, since there is not even a military hospital in Łódź. Will students commute to classes practically to Krakow or Warsaw?” – he asked.
Author. Sgt. Sławomir Kozioł 18.DZ
Mariusz Gierej is of the opinion that civilian and military medicine should not be separated too much, “especially since, as Lieutenant General Grzegorz Gielerak says, the war is started by the military, but it is ended by civilians. This means that these educated battlefield medics will follow the army if the army advances or die in the course of hostilities.
And then the burden of servicing these wounded, injured soldiers will also rest more and more on the civilian health care system” – he explained.
Therefore, in the opinion of the spokesman of the Military Institute of Medicine, the optimal education system for military doctors should be organized in the same way as it is done in most NATO countries, i.e. “at civilian universities, providing access to battlefield medicine classes also for civilians”. He emphasized that “in this way, a synergy effect is achieved, without incurring additional costs of organizing special training for new doctors in this field of medicine.”
Gierej noted that “we still have a huge effort ahead of us to train civilian medical personnel who are currently operating in the system.” He reminded that such a dilemma is faced not only by Poland, but also by other NATO countries, and most of them have chosen a model based on civilian universities as giving a synergy effect.
The PAP interlocutor pointed out that each country has limited resources, a limited number of people who can educate in this type of medicine. “The decision we will make will affect the future of the military and civilian health service and the preparation of the Polish state for military operations. We will be able to assess the effects after years, when, perhaps, today the decision-makers making these decisions will be in a completely different place” – he stressed. He added that this decision “is followed by responsibility for the death or life of hundreds of thousands of people.”
Author. Sgt. Sławomir Kozioł 18.DZ