Field hospital in the context of "Rear (military)"

A pandemic (/pænˈdɛmɪk/ pan-DEM-ik) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial portion of the human population. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.

Throughout human history, there have been a number of pandemics of diseases such as smallpox. The Black Death, caused by the Plague, caused the deaths of up to half of the population of Europe in the 14th century. The term pandemic had not been used then, but was used for later epidemics, including the 1918 H1N1 influenza A pandemic—more commonly known as the Spanish flu—which is the deadliest pandemic in history. The most recent pandemics include the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the 2009 swine flu pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost all these diseases still circulate among humans though their impact now is often far less.

The term military medicine has a number of potential connotations. It may mean:

• A medical specialty, specifically a branch of occupational medicine attending to the medical risks and needs (both preventive and interventional) of soldiers, sailors and other service members. This disparate arena has historically involved the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases (especially tropical diseases), and, in the 20th century, the ergonomics and health effects of operating military-specific machines and equipment such as submarines, tanks, helicopters and airplanes. Undersea and aviation medicine can be understood as subspecialties of military medicine, or in any case originated as such. Few countries certify or recognize "military medicine" as a formal speciality or subspeciality in its own right.
• The planning and practice of the surgical management of mass battlefield casualties and the logistical and administrative considerations of establishing and operating combat support hospitals. This involves military medical hierarchies, especially the organization of structured medical command and administrative systems that interact with and support deployed combat units. (See Battlefield medicine.)
• The administration and practice of health care for military service members and their dependents in non-deployed (peacetime) settings. This may (as in the United States) consist of a medical system paralleling all the medical specialties and sub-specialties that exist in the civilian sector. (See also Veterans Health Administration which serves U.S. veterans.)
• Medical research and development specifically bearing upon problems of military medical interest. Historically, this encompasses all of the medical advances emerging from medical research efforts directed at addressing the problems encountered by deployed military forces (e.g., vaccines or drugs for soldiers, medical evacuation systems, drinking water chlorination, etc.) many of which ultimately prove important beyond the purely military considerations that inspired them.

The Joint Medical Service (German: Zentraler Sanitätsdienst der Bundeswehr, short form: Zentraler Sanitätsdienst, pronounced [t͡sɛnˈtʁaːlɐ zaniˈtɛːt͡sˌdiːnst] ) is a part of the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of Germany and serves all three armed services (Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as the Cyber and Information Domain Service). Members of the central medical corps remain members of their respective military branches. Only a few specialized medical units such as the medical care for divers and aircraft crews are not incorporated in the Joint Medical Service. Prior to 2002 each military branch had its own medical service. The services were then largely merged, forming the Joint Medical Service. In May 2021 the minister of defense Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer together with Inspector General of the Bundeswehr Eberhard Zorn published a plan to dissolve the Joint Medical Service and to reintegrate its units into the army, navy, airforce and cyber command.

Sophia of Prussia (Sophie Dorothea Ulrike Alice, Greek: Σοφία Δωροθέα Ουλρίκη Αλίκη, romanized: Sofía Dorothéa Oulríki Alíki; 14 June 1870 – 13 January 1932) was Queen of Greece from 18 March 1913 to 11 June 1917 and again from 19 December 1920 to 27 September 1922 as the wife of King Constantine I.

A member of the House of Hohenzollern and child of Frederick III, German Emperor, Sophia received a liberal and Anglophile education, under the supervision of her mother Victoria, Princess Royal. In 1889, less than a year after the death of her father, she married her third cousin Constantine, heir apparent to the Greek throne. After a difficult period of adaptation in her new country, Sophia gave birth to six children and became involved in the assistance to the poor, following in the footsteps of her mother-in-law, Queen Olga. However, it was during the wars which Greece faced during the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century that Sophia showed the most social activity: she founded field hospitals, oversaw the training of Greek nurses, and treated wounded soldiers.

A Combat Support Hospital (CSH, pronounced "cash") is a type of modern United States Army field hospital. The CSH is transportable by aircraft and trucks and is normally delivered to the Corps Support Area in standard military-owned demountable containers (MILVAN) cargo containers. Once transported, it is assembled by the staff into a tent hospital to treat patients. Depending upon the operational environment (i.e., battlefield), a CSH might also treat civilians and wounded enemy soldiers. The CSH is the successor to the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH).

From November 2017, the United States Army and United States Army Reserve began reorganizing combat support hospitals into smaller, modular units called "field hospitals".

An alternate care site (ACS) is a medical treatment facility established in a non-traditional setting during a public-health crisis (or other event causing strain on local medical resources) as a means of providing additional capacity to deliver medical care within a given area. The term encompasses both civilian-operated medical facilities established in non-traditional places such as hotels, gymnasiums, and convention centers, or other "structure[s] of opportunity," as well as military field medical units being used for public-health purposes. Usually, the option of establishing an ACS becomes relevant once the scale of an emergency extends beyond a single metropolitan area. Though commonly established (or, at a minimum, overseen) by public-health authorities, ACSes can also be established by private entities, such as large employers. ACSes have been widely used as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in other recent crises such as the Western African Ebola virus epidemic.