The role of the Army's medical personnel is significant: they provide lifesaving emergency medical treatment for their fellow Soldiers – oftentimes during extreme chaos.

The annual CSM Jack L. Clark Jr. Army Best Medic Competition seeks to challenge the Army’s best medical personnel in a simulated operational environment. During the competition, two-soldier teams navigate a grueling series of events that push their stress, physical, and emergency medical skills to the limits. Among the many challenges the competitors face are an obstacle course, a physical fitness challenge, land navigation, and stress shoots on a firing range, which test their ability to fight despite difficult conditions. And, competitors’ medical proficiencies are tested in day and night combat medic lanes that demand effective management of simulated casualties. Competitors progress through all of these exhausting challenges in just 3 days. The winning team earns major bragging rights: they are considered the most technically competent, physically and mentally tough medic team in the Army.¹

Medics who earn entry into the Best Medic Competition are already among the "best of the best." To be eligible for entry, medics must have received either the Expert Field Medical Badge (EFMB) or the Combat Medical Badge (CMB).² Both badges require the utmost determination and competence to receive. The overall pass rate for the Expert Field Medical Badge is less than 20%, making it one of the hardest and most respected forms of recognition you can earn in the army.³

By the time competitors have made it to the competition, simulation has likely already played a role in preparing them to excel. Simulation is widely used to train medics on emergency medical care, including a focus on the three primary preventable causes of death on the battlefield. These include hemorrhage, tension pneumothorax, and airway obstruction.¹¹

This training has an impact in setting medics up for success during the Best Medic Competition. As they compete, they draw upon some of the same skills they trained on using simulation to demonstrate critical medical competencies. 

During the competition, simulators are commonly used for testing the medics' medical abilities. These training scenarios give them the opportunity to practice delivering effective care despite everything going on around them.

Simulation training has been shown to improve skills retention in military training – so medics are likely to leave the competition retaining some of the skills they improved during the scenarios.¹³

Below are some of the areas that simulation training during the competition improves medics' future preparedness in delivering effective casualty care:

The value of participating in the Best Medic Competition is two-fold. Not only do medics leave with new levels of agility, strength, and preparedness; but they’ve also acquired expertise that they can bring home to their teams.

"I may not be the best medic, but what I learned will make me a better leader. I can take the things we’ve done here, and I can go back and … teach them to my medics," explains Sergeant Jarrod Sheets, a combat medic who took second place in 2016.¹⁹

The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.