Tactical Combat Casualty Care
The Military Health System is pleased to host the Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care's (CoTCCC) updated curriculum for the Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) course.
The TCCC course is the military counterpart to the Prehospital Trauma Life Support Course. It is designed for military medics, corpsmen, and pararescuemen who are preparing to deploy in support of combat operations. Casualty care on the battlefield must be the best possible combination of good medicine and good small-unit tactics.
The specifics of casualty care in the tactical setting will depend on the tactical situation, the injuries sustained by the casualty, the knowledge and skills of the first responder, and the medical equipment at hand. In contrast to a hospital Emergency Department setting where the patient IS the mission, on the battlefield, care of casualties sustained is only PART of the mission.
TCCC recognizes this fact and structures its guidelines to accomplish three primary goals:
- Treat the casualty
- Prevent additional casualties
- Complete the mission
The TCCC program was developed to customize the principles of good trauma care for successful use on the battlefield.
The need for a standing committee to ensure that the TCCC guidelines are updated as necessary to reflect both new advances in prehospital medicine and battlefield experience with TCCC was identified in the original 1996 TCCC paper. The CoTCCC was established in 2001 and is now part of the Defense Health Board.
The TCCC guidelines are published every 4 years in the Prehospital Trauma Life Support Manual. It has been recognized that TCCC guidelines and curriculum will need to change more often than the 4-year cycle of the PHTLS textbook publication. MHS will include the updated TCCC guidelines and curriculum on its website as they are approved as a way to help get this new information out to the combat medical personnel in the military who need it.
The TCCC Guidelines are best-practice trauma care guidelines customized for use on the battlefield. They are guidelines only - there are no rigid protocols in combat, including Tactical Combat Casualty Care. If the recommended TCCC combat trauma management plan doesn’t work for the specific tactical situation that a combat medic, corpsman, or PJ encounters, then care must be modified to best fit the tactical situation. Scenario-based planning is critical for success in TCCC.
The Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care develops recommendations that are submitted to the Defense Health Board for review and approval. If approved, the recommendations are sent to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) (ASD(HA)) for consideration. Posting these recommendations on this website does not constitute endorsement by the ASD(HA). Subsequent TCCC guidelines and curricula have not been reviewed or endorsed by the ASD(HA) or the Defense Health Board.
Dates of Changes to Teaching Files
TCCC Guidelines