By Edward Neeley, MD; Roger Hesselbrock, MD, FAAN; Charles
Lappan, MBA, MPA; Philip Girard, MS; and Jack Tsao, MD, DPhil,
FAAN US military members deploy to remote, austere, and
dangerous locations. While these overseas locations all have
some medical care capability, it is largely limited to basic
primary care services. Aid stations and clinics have minimal
diagnostic and therapeutic capacity. They are often staffed by
more junior medical personnel, including non-physician providers
and in some cases by enlisted independent-duty medical
technicians. Until recently, there were rarely neurologists,
even at hospital-level medical facilities in the combat
environment. Thus, access to specialty services is both
difficult and cumbersome due to limited telecommunication
access, time zone differences, and specialist availability. With
advances in communication technology, deployed US military
providers now have timely access to military specialists in a
variety of disciplines, including neurology. The United States