Social Determinant of Unconventional Resilience: Tactical Engagement in Medical-Martial Creativity.

Building on our strategic framework and operational model, we will discuss findings from our ethnographic study entitled, "The Impact of Catastrophic Injury Exposure on Resilience in Special Operations Surgical Teams (SOST)." Our goal is to establish that medical-martial creativity supports Special Operation Forces (SOF) medics' ability to fluidly modulate pressure amid real-time military medical decision-making in austere environments. We will use qualitative quotes to explore how SOST medics express medical-martial creativity in support of unconventional resilience. We continue to highlight tactical engagement by using bag sets as a metaphor for understanding the practical performance of this social determinant. To achieve our goals, we will: 1) define the social determinant of medical-martial creativity and provide a brief background on creativity; 2) thematize various ways in which medical-martial creativity is optimized or degraded; and 3) relate tactical engagement with medical-martial creativity to our metaphor of bag sets. We conclude by gesturing to how medical-martial creativity enables SOF medics' ingenuity, which allows them to freely maneuver complex real-time decision-making to support SOF mission success.

Social Determinant of Unconventional Resilience Tactical Engagement with Bonding Patterns.

Building upon our strategic framework and operational model, we will discuss findings from our ethnographic study, entitled: "The Impact of Catastrophic Injury Exposure on Resilience in Special Operations Surgical Teams (SOSTs)," to explain the tactical nature and importance of social determinants within our new characterization of unconventional resilience. Our fourth paper in this series, will explain how bonding patterns establish the quality of intra- and interpersonal connections that create a tensive conduit for the pressure of performance within our operational model, allowing for dynamic freedom of maneuver to take place in ambiguity. We will use qualita- tive quotes to illustrate various ways SOST medics relate to themselves, other people, and the Special Operations Forces (SOF) culture. To achieve our goals, we will: 1) provide an in- troduction to social determinants as tactical engagement with unconventional resilience; 2) define the social determinant of bonding patterns as extrapolated from qualitative data as well as use qualitative data to thematize various types of bonding patterns; and 3) relate tactical engagement with bonding pat- terns to our metaphor of bag sets. We conclude by gesturing to the importance of bonding patterns in orienting SOF medics' proprioception and kinesthesia in the SOF performance space.

Social Determinant of Unconventional Resilience: Tactical Engagement with Impression Management.

Building upon our operational model, we will discuss findings from our ethnographic study titled "The Impact of Catastrophic Injury Exposure on Resilience in Special Operations Surgical Teams" to establish that impression management allows Special Operation Forces (SOF) medics to navigate implicit social status symbols to either degrade or optimize performance. We will use qualitative quotes to explore how Special Operations Surgical Team (SOST) medics engage in impression management to establish individual, team, and/or organizational competency to deal with ambiguity. To achieve our goals, we will: 1) provide a background on impression management and perception of competency; 2) define the social determinant of impression management extrapolated from qualitative data as well as use qualitative data to thematize various types of impression management; and 3) relate tactical engagement with impression to our metaphor of bag sets. We conclude by gesturing to the importance of impression management in orienting SOF medics' proprioception and kinesthesia in the SOF performance space.

Unconventional Resilience: An Operational Model.

This is the third of nine planned papers drawn from the findings of our ethnographic study entitled "The Impact of Catastrophic Injury Exposure on Resilience in Special Operations Surgical Teams." Building from our strategic framework, this paper will establish that resilience is better understood as cohesive adaptation within a Special Operation Forces (SOF) cultural ecosystem. Exploring unconventional resilience as the inter-relationship across the organization, team, and individual, we will use qualitative quotes to describe the ecosystem of dynamic freedom of maneuver in ambiguity. To achieve our goals, we will: 1) compare conventional and unconventional resilience to operationalize the components of our strategic framework; 2) use qualitative quotes to show how the ecosystem of unconventional resilience functions at each level supporting our operational model; and 3) describe how the operational model of unconventional resilience links to tactical performance through five social determinants. We conclude by gesturing to how transformational change-agency applies to practical performance of all SOF medics.

Unconventional Resilience: A Strategic Framework.

This will be the second in a series of nine articles in which we discuss findings from our ethnographic study entitled "The Impact of Catastrophic Injury Exposure on Resilience in Special Operations Surgical Teams." Our goal in this article is to establish the practical importance of redefining resilience within a strategic framework. Our bottom-up approach to strategy development explores unconventional resilience as an integrated transformational process that promotes change-agency through the force of movement. Synthesis of empirical data derived from participant interviews and focus groups highlights conceptual attributes that make up the essential components of this framework. To achieve our goal, the authors (1) briefly remind readers how we have problematized conventional resilience; (2) explain how we analyzed qualitative quotes to extrapolate our definition of unconventional resilience; and (3) describe in detail our strategic framework. We conclude by gesturing to why this strategic framework is applicable to practical performance of all Special Operation Forces (SOF) medics.

Conventional Resilience and the Impact of Catastrophic Injury Exposure on Special Operations Surgical Teams.

This article presents a justification for using an ethnographic approach to research resilience. Our hypothesis is that the conventional resilience construct is ineffective in achieving its stated goal of mitigating diagnosable stress pathologies because it is grounded in a set of assumptions that overlook human experience when examining human performance in combat. To achieve this goal, we (1) describe the evolution of the strategic framework within which the conventional resilience construct is defined; (2) highlight certain limiting assumptions entailed in this framework; (3) explain how bottom-up ethnographic research relates the medic's practical performance to military requirements and mission capabilities; and (4) articulate the unique elements of our study that widen the aperture of the conventional resilience construct. We conclude by gesturing to initial research findings.

Adapting to Death: Clarifying the Roles of Special Operations Combat Medics in Prolonged Field Care.

I suggest that Special Operations Forces (SOF) medicine should explicitly acknowledge the Special Operations combat medic's role in attending death. This acknowledgment will allow researchers to evaluate and delimit the medic's needs in relationship to an expanded set of roles that move beyond life-saving care. This article comprises four sections. First, I provide background to my argument by exploring some assumptions of modern medicine and objections to exploring battlefield death care. Second, I describe how I see the medic's role expanding with the introduction of prolonged field care. Third, I address the implications of the medic's expanded role in relationship to role and function stress and strain. Fourth, I address the moral complexity related to withdrawing or withholding care. I conclude by briefly highlighting some of the implications for future research. In explicitly engaging death as a medical reality for which the medic ought to be prepared, SOF medicine could set the foundational development for seeing death as a valuable gift to be explored, not a failure to be avoided or burden to be overcome.