During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Portable Surgical Hospitals (PSH) were a type of

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile A ...

within the United States Army. They were units of the

United States Army Medical Department The Army Medical Department of the U.S. Army (AMEDD), formerly known as the Army Medical Service (AMS), encompasses the Army's six medical Special Branches (or "Corps"). It was established as the "Army Hospital" in July 1775 to coordinate the me ...

designed to be man-portable by the team staffing the hospital. Unique to the Pacific Theater of Operations, they were the operational forbearers of the larger, more robust

Mobile Army Surgical Hospital Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals were U.S. Army field hospital units conceptualized in 1946 as replacements for the World War II-era Auxiliary Surgical Group hospital units, which had become obsolete. MASH Units were in operation from the Korean ...

(MASH units).

History of the Portable Surgical Hospitals

In February 1942, Colonel Percy J. Carroll, the Chief Surgeon of the US Army Forces, Southwest Pacific Area, found that he had problems integrating large 400 to 750-bed field and evacuation hospitals into troop flow as forces advanced because of the underdeveloped transportation infrastructure and terrain in the Southwest Pacific, particularly in Papua and New Guinea. This limited his ability to move hospitals closely forward behind advancing forces and support combat operations with effective, far-forward surgical care. During the summer and fall of 1942, at Carroll's direction, a team of Medical Corps officers modified the basic

War Department War Department may refer to: * War Department (United Kingdom) * United States Department of War (1789–1947) See also * War Office, a former department of the British Government * Ministry of defence * Ministry of War * Ministry of Defence * D ...

Table of Organization and Equipment A table of organization and equipment (TOE or TO&E) is the specified organization, staffing, and equipment of Military unit, units. Also used in acronyms as 'T/O' and 'T/E'. It also provides information on the mission and capabilities of a unit as ...

(T/O&E) for a standard 25-bed station hospital (T/O&E 8-560, 22 July 1942) into a new theater table of organization and table of basic allowances (T/O, T/BA) (T/O 8-508-S-SWPA, 31 October 1942) for a portable hospital of 25 beds. The new unit was capable of supporting small units in its camp-type version (wits.h 4 female Army

nurse Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...

s and organic vehicles) or

battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions are ...

and

regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation. In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripted ...

al combat teams in its task force version (without the 4 nurses and organic vehicles). Commanded by a Medical Corps captain or major, the new 29-man portable hospital had four medical officers (three general

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

s and a general surgeon/

anesthetist Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology, or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine, ...

) and 25 enlisted men, including two surgical and 11 medical technicians. The PSH had to be flexible in nature and the hospitals consisted of what could be carried with the staff, in addition to their personal gear. A radical departure was that all of the unit's equipment, medical and surgical supplies, and rations could weigh no more than the 29 men could personally transport. Designed to meet a specific problem at a specific point in time, the Portable Surgical Hospital had several shortcomings. First, the weight limitations meant that it lacked much of the equipment that it needed to conduct definitive surgery. Second, it lacked the capacity to hold patients for any length of time, which could often be called for by the tactical situation. Third, the assigned surgeons lacked the skills and experience necessary to meet the demands on the units, as Carroll often sent younger, less experienced surgeons forward, a departure from the Army's experience in World War I, which showed that less experienced surgeons should be kept at larger facilities to the rear, where they could operate under the tutelage of a more experienced senior staff surgeon. And, finally, the Portable Surgical Hospitals had been stripped so lean that they were never truly self-sufficient, and had to rely on other units for life-support. The

, developed after World War II, would address these concerns. One-hundred percent mobile with organic vehicles, with 60 beds and assigned nurses, and fully equipped and supplied to provide definitive care, the MASH built on the experiences of the PSHs of World War II.

List of PSH

*1st Portable Surgical Hospital *2nd Portable Surgical Hospital *3rd Portable Surgical Hospital *4th Portable Surgical Hospital *5th Portable Surgical Hospital *6th Portable Surgical Hospital *7th Portable Surgical Hospital *8th Portable Surgical Hospital *9th Portable Surgical Hospital *10th Portable Surgical Hospital *11th Portable Surgical Hospital *12th Portable Surgical Hospital *13th Portable Surgical Hospital *14th Portable Surgical Hospital *15th Portable Surgical Hospital *16th Portable Surgical Hospital *17th Portable Surgical Hospital *18th Portable Surgical Hospital *19th Portable Surgical Hospital *20th Portable Surgical Hospital *21st Portable Surgical Hospital *22nd Portable Surgical Hospital *23rd Portable Surgical Hospital *24th Portable Surgical Hospital *27th Portable Surgical Hospital * 28th Portable Surgical Hospital *30th Portable Surgical Hospital *31st Portable Surgical Hospital *32nd Portable Surgical Hospital *33rd Portable Surgical Hospital *35th Portable Surgical Hospital *35th Portable Surgical Hospital *36th Portable Surgical Hospital *38th Portable Surgical Hospital *40th Portable Surgical Hospital *41st Portable Surgical Hospital *42nd Portable Surgical Hospital *43rd Portable Surgical Hospital *44th Portable Surgical Hospital *

45th Portable Surgical Hospital The 45th Surgical Hospital was a United States military hospital that saw service in the China-Burma-India theater in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Lineage Activated 7 June 1943 at Camp White, Oregon as the 45th Portable Surgical Hospital ...

*46th Portable Surgical Hospital *47th Portable Surgical Hospital *48th Portable Surgical Hospital *49th Portable Surgical Hospital *50th Portable Surgical Hospital *51st Portable Surgical Hospital *52nd Portable Surgical Hospital *53rd Portable Surgical Hospital *54th Portable Surgical Hospital *55th Portable Surgical Hospital *56th Portable Surgical Hospital *57th Portable Surgical Hospital *58th Portable Surgical Hospital *60th Portable Surgical Hospital *61st Portable Surgical Hospital *62nd Portable Surgical Hospital *63rd Portable Surgical Hospital *64th Portable Surgical Hospital *66th Portable Surgical Hospital *67th Portable Surgical Hospital *95th Portable Surgical Hospital *96th Portable Surgical Hospital *97th Portable Surgical Hospital *98th Portable Surgical Hospital

References

{{Reflist *Theobald, Paul
About the 45th Portable Surgical Hospital 1943
Retrieved 2007-03-01. Hospitals of the United States Army Surgery