Military medicine
Legal status: Military medical personnel engage in humanitarian work and are "protected persons" under international humanitarian law in accordance with the First and Second Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, which established legally binding rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection for wounded soldiers, field or ship's medical personnel, and specific humanitarian institutions in an armed conflict. International humanitarian law makes no distinction between medical personnel who are members of the armed forces (and who hold military ranks) and those who are civilian volunteers. All medical personnel are considered non-combatants under international humanitarian law because of their humanitarian duties, and they may not be attacked and not be taken as prisoners of war; hospitals and other medical facilities and transports identified as such, whether they are military or civilian, may not be attacked either. The red cross, the red crescent and the red crystal are the protective signs recognised under international humanitarian law, and are used by military medical personnel and facilities for this purpose. Attacking military medical personnel, patients in their care, or medical facilities or transports legitimately marked as such is a war crime. Likewise, misusing these protective signs to mask military operations is the war crime of perfidy. Military medical personnel may be armed, usually with service pistols, for the purpose of self defense or the defense of patients.

Historical significance: The significance of military medicine for combat strength goes far beyond treatment of battlefield injuries; in every major war fought until the late 19th century disease claimed more soldier casualties than did enemy action. During the American Civil War (1860–65), for example, about twice as many soldiers died of disease as were killed or mortally wounded in combat. The Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) is considered to have been the first conflict in which combat injury exceeded disease, at least in the German coalition army which lost 3.47% of its average headcount to combat and only 1.82% to disease. In new world countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada, military physicians and surgeons contributed significantly to the development of civilian health care.
Improvements in military medicine have increased the survival rates in successive wars, due to improvements in medical evacuation, battlefield medicine and trauma care. Similar improvements have been seen in trauma practices during the Iraq war. Some military trauma care practices are disseminated by citizen soldiers who return to civilian practice. One such practice is where major trauma patients are transferred to an operating theater as soon as possible, to stop internal bleeding, increasing the survival rate. Within the United States, the survival rate for gunshot wounds has increased, leading to apparent declines in the gun death rate in states that have stable rates of gunshot hospitalizations.

Military medicine by country: 

North America: 

Canada: Royal Canadian Medical Service
Royal Canadian Dental Corps
Canadian Forces Health Services Group
Surgeon General (Canada)
National Defence Medical Centre

United States: U.S. Army

U.S. Navy

U.S. Air Force

Europe: 

France: French Defence Health Service
École du service de santé des armées

Belgium: Belgian Medical Component

Germany: Bundeswehr Joint Medical Service
Bundeswehr Medical Academy
Luftwaffe Institute of Aviation Medicine
Naval Medical Institute
Generaloberstabsarzt
Generalstabsarzt
Generalarzt
Oberstarzt
Oberfeldarzt
Oberstabsarzt
Stabsarzt
Oberarzt (military)
Assistenzarzt (military)

Italy: Corpo sanitario dell'Esercito Italiano
Corpo sanitario militare marittimo
Corpo sanitario aeronautico
Servizio sanitario dell'Arma dei carabinieri

Russia: 

Serbia: Military Medical Academy

Sweden: Surgeon-General of the Swedish Armed Forces
Medical Corps of the Swedish Armed Forces
Swedish Armed Forces Centre for Defence Medicine
Surgeon-in-Chief of the Swedish Army
Surgeon-in-Chief of the Swedish Navy
Surgeon-in-Chief of the Swedish Air Force
Swedish Army Medical Corps
Swedish Naval Medical Officers' Corps
Swedish Armed Forces Diving and Naval Medicine Centre
Swedish Army Veterinary Corps

United Kingdom: 

Asia: 

India: Director General Armed Forces Medical Services (India)
Army Medical Corps (India)
Armed Forces Medical College
Command Hospital
Indian Medical Service

Israel: 

Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka Army Medical Corps

Thailand: Phramongkutklao College of Medicine

Vietnam: Vietnam Military Medical University (Học Viện Quân Y) in Hanoi

Other regions: 

Australia: 

South Africa: South African Medical Service
South African Military Health Service

International: International Committee of Military Medicine
Committee of Chiefs of Military Medical Services in NATO (COMEDS)

See also: 

References: 

Further reading: Bowlby, Sir Anthony and Colonel Cuthbert Wallace. "The Development of British Surgery at the Front." The British Medical Journal 1 (1917): 705–721.
Churchill, Edward D. "Healing by First Intention and with Suppuration: Studies in the History of Wound Healing.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 19 (1964): 193–214.
Churchill, Edward D.  “The Surgical Management of the wounded at the time of the Fall of Rome.” Annals of Surgery 120 (1944): 268–283.
Cowdrey,  Albert E. Fighting for Life: American Military Medicine in World War II (1994), scholarly history, 400 pp
Cowdrey,  Albert E. United States Army in the Korean War: The Medics War (1987), full-scale scholarly official history; online free
Fauntleroy, A.M. "The Surgical Lessons of the European War." Annals of Surgery 64 (1916): 136–150.
Fazal, Tanisha M. (2024). Military Medicine and the Hidden Costs of War. Oxford University Press.
Grissinger, Jay W. "The Development of Military Medicine." Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 3 (1927): 301–356. online
Harrison, Mark. Medicine and victory: British military medicine in the Second World War (Oxford UP, 2004).
Whayne, Col. Tom F. and Colonel Joseph H. McNinch. “Fifty Years of Medical Progress: Medicine as a Social Instrument: Military Medicine.” The New England Journal of Medicine 244 (1951): 591–601.
Wintermute, Bobby A. Public health and the US military: a history of the Army Medical Department, 1818–1917 (2010).

Primary sources: Kendrick, Douglas B. Memoirs of a Twentieth-Century Army Surgeon (Sunflower University Press, 19920, U.S. Army

External links: 
U.S. military medicine

Military Medicine related links from USAF Air University
Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS)
Military Medicine, the International Journal of AMSUS
Patriot Medicine, a vertical network for the military medical ecosystem
Military Medicine Through Time. Life and Death in the War Zone | NOVA | PBS
The Borden Institute Homepage
Military Medicine Documents at USU Archive
U.S. Army Preventive Medicine news archive from the 7th Infantry Division (Light) Panorama weekly newspaper 1988.
Virtual Naval Hospital – a digital library of military medicine and humanitarian medicine
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/57114/5652001/in/keyword/487917/self (military medical exams)
Australian military medicine

Australian Military Medicine Association
International Magazine for Military Medicine

MCIF MEDICAL CORPS INTERNATIONAL FORUM  International Magazine for Military Medicine
NATO Centre of Excellence for Military Medicine

NATO Centre of Excellence for Military Medicine