Tim Murphy connects the lessons learned from IEDs in Iraq to the outstanding performance of Boston’s hospitals:
Chief among the lessons of roadside bombs was the resurgence of the tourniquet. A staple of pre-World War II trauma care, it had fallen out of favor in recent decades because of misuse. Going into the invasion of Afghanistan, “This was still being taught in EMS courses and in trauma literature as a bad thing,” says Donald Jenkins, director of the trauma center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a 24-year Air Force veteran. But military doctors soon found that when applied correctly and in the right situation, tourniquets pay enormous dividends—dropping the mortality rate in such instances from 90 percent to 10 percent. Now they’re standard procedure among first responders.
The Dish 