Without a hospitalization capability, battalion medical care is limited to primary care and combat resuscitation. The U.S. Army has traditionally dispatched doctors to battalions. After the Vietnam War, the Army studied this practice critically. Suffering from doctor shortages, the Army sought to best distribute medical expertise across its spectrum of operations. Medical analysts, equipped with in-depth combat experience, determined that a capabilities mismatch existed at battalion level. Medical school training created providers skilled in the implementation of hospital systems. These skills were not used at the battalion. To address the disparity, the Army centralized its doctor capability in hospitals. The battalion mission was delegated to Army physician assistants--entities created specifically to satisfy front line medical needs. In 1984, the physician returned to the battalion exclusively for deployment. With physician shortages again afflicting the Army secondary to contemporary wars, this thesis recommends that the PA-only model of battalion medical care again be implemented.

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