Sixty-five years ago, the Korean War started as North Korean forces poured over the border at the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. The conflict raged for three years before an armistice was signed in 1953, taking countless lives and leaving many wounded. While there are usually few positives coming from warfare, the conflict in Korea did much to advance military medicine, with implications for U.S. and allied forces today.

“The Korean War was when the modern military medical system gelled,” said Alan Hawk, a specialist in charge of historical collections at the National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) in Silver Spring, Maryland. “For the first time, helicopters were routinely deployed for short-length air evacuation; long-range air transports ferried patients to hospitals stateside; hospital ships were again in use as floating treatment centers, and, of course, the rise of the M.A.S.H [Mobile Army Surgical Hospital] unit.”

Hawk went on to say the Korean terrain and the mobility of the first year of the war made it conducive to the rise of these innovations in medical care. And while the M.A.S.H. units were mobile, after a stalemate ensued in the second and third years of the war, there was a buildup in the infrastructure at fixed locations, much like the transformation seen in Afghanistan during the later years of the conflict there. The lessons of how to run a military hospital on the warfront first learned in previous conflicts, especially World War II, were honed in Korea. “Despite weapons becoming more deadly and damaging, Korea saw an astronomical increase in survival rates,” said Hawk.

The image of an Army hospital in Korea popularized in the television show, M*A*S*H, might be the one most people think of, but Hawk said most patients didn’t get their care at those hospitals. “A M.A.S.H. was a small part of the action. Most patients went through the regular battalion aid stations and off for care in other places.”

Hawk said the lessons that American military medicine learned during the Korean War are still providing benefits today. Stabilization techniques first practiced more than 60 years ago have seen incredible advances, as new technology allows a wounded service member to be evacuated much more quickly. Better monitoring during modern air evacuation gives medics much more flexibility in being able to ship out casualties faster than in the Korean War. Developments in medical research, such as efforts to rapidly develop cold-weather protective gear to combat harsh Korean winters, saved lives during the course of the conflict and set the stage for the rise of new protection technologies that remain in use. Overall, such advances have resulted in the highest survival rates ever seen in the history of warfare, along with the lowest disease and non-battle injury rates.

“The medical response to the outbreak of epidemic hemorrhagic fever during the Korean War required careful patient management processes, utilizing a robust clinical laboratory framework, both of which were considerable advances for that time. The lessons learned during the Korean War are reflected in the West African theater today, in response to the Ebola epidemic,” said Hawk. “This is another example of how military medical history can help inform the military medical response today to ensure that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are safer and better cared for, no matter the conditions.”

Korea-field-medic: A U.S. soldier with a bullet in his back is given a morphine injection on the battlefield by a medic. (Courtesy: National Museum of Health and Medicine).