Royal Army Medical Corps

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Royal Army Medical Corps
Saint Luke
Motto(s)In Arduis Fidelis
(Faithful in Adversity)[1]
ColorsDull cherry, royal blue, old gold
MarchQuick: Here's a Health unto His Majesty (arr. A.J. Thornburrow)
Slow: Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still (J Campbell arr. Brown)
AnniversariesCorps Day (23 June)
Commanders
Colonel-in-ChiefThe Duke of Gloucester
Colonel CommandantBrigadier Christopher Parker
Insignia
Tactical recognition flash

The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps and Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps form the Army Medical Services.

History

Origins

Medical services in the British armed services date from the formation of the

regimental basis, with each battalion arranging its own hospital facilities and medical supplies. An element of oversight was provided by the appointment of three officials: a Surgeon-general, a Physician-general and an Apothecary-general.[4]

Army Medical Board

In 1793 an Army Medical Board was formed (consisting of the Surgeon-general, Physician-general and Inspector of Regimental Infirmaries),

Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where invalided soldiers were routinely sent for pension assessment) and the hospital at Parkhurst (which was attached to the army's Invalid Depôt on the Isle of Wight, where soldiers invalided home from service overseas were initially sent).[8]

Army Medical Department

In 1810 the offices of Surgeon-general and Physician-general were abolished and a new Army Medical Department was established, overseen by a board chaired by a Director-General of the Medical Department.

Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular War. During that time he had introduced significant changes in the organisation of the army's medical services, placing them on a far more formal footing:[10] together with George Guthrie, he instituted the use of dedicated ambulance wagons to transport the wounded, and set up a series of temporary hospitals (formed of prefabricated huts brought over from Britain) to aid the evacuation of wounded soldiers from the front line.[2]

After the end of the Peninsular War Fort Pitt in Chatham became the de facto headquarters of the Army Medical Department[11] (the Invalid Depôt having relocated to Chatham from the Isle of Wight). A General Military Hospital was established on the site, which took on many of the functions (and most of the patients) of the old York Hospital.[12] The influence of the Director-General grew, and from 1833 he was given sole charge of the Department. That same year the (hitherto separate) Irish Medical Board was merged into the Department, as was the Ordnance Medical Department twenty years later.[4]

The

Scutari, more than 300 miles from the front. Within weeks of arriving, more than half the British force had been incapacitated by disease (mainly typhus, dysentery and cholera); and in the space of seven months some 10,000 British servicemen out of a total of 28,000 had died.[2]

The Department after Crimea

In June 1855 a Medical Staff Corps was established (in place of the Hospital Conveyance Corps, which had by then been merged into the

Royal Victoria Military Hospital at Netley outside Southampton.[15]

Netley functioned as a general hospital, but much of the army's medical work continued to be carried out at a regimental level. At the time a regiment of 1,044 men would have a medical staff of one surgeon and two assistants (with an additional assistant being appointed if the regiment was stationed abroad, so as to allow the senior assistant to remain at home with the companies appointed to the depot).[14]

The regimental basis of appointment for MOs continued until 1873, when a coordinated army medical service was set up. To join, a doctor needed to be qualified, single, and aged at least 21, and then undergo a further examination in physiology, surgery, medicine, zoology, botany and physical geography including meteorology, and also to satisfy various other requirements (including having dissected the whole body at least once and having attended 12 midwifery cases); the results were published in three classes by the Army Medical School.[16] In 1884 the medical officers of the Army Medical Department were brought together with the quartermasters who provided their supplies to form the Army Medical Staff, which was given command of the Medical Staff Corps (which consisted entirely of other ranks).[2]

Nevertheless, there was much unhappiness in the Army Medical Service in the following years as medical officers did not have military rank but "advantages corresponding to relative military rank" (such as choice of quarters, rates of lodging money, servants, fuel and light, allowances on account of injuries received in action, and pensions and allowances to widows and families). They had inferior pay in India, excessive amounts of Indian and colonial service (being required to serve in India six years at a stretch), and less recognition in honours and awards. They did not have their own identity as did the Army Service Corps, whose officers did have military rank. A number of complaints were published, and the

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught.[18]

The Corps in the 20th century

The RAMC Memorial for the Boer War at Aldershot in Hampshire
Beret and cap badge used by the RAMC in present day

The RAMC began to develop during the

Earl of Midleton, appointed Chairman of this Committee and the subsequent Advisory Committee. Neither would have met so soon—if at all—but for Fripp's concern to limit unnecessary suffering, and for his ten years' friendship with the new King, Edward VII. Fripp showed him his plans for reform and the King made sure that they were not shelved by his government. Part of his plan was to move the Netley Hospital and Medical School to a Thames-side site at Millbank, London. Cooper Perry, Fripp's colleague from Guy's Hospital, was instrumental in making this happen, as well as using his formidable talents as an organizer in other services for the Reform Committee. Fripp and Cooper Perry were knighted for their services to the RAMC Committee of Reform in 1903.[19]

During the First World War, the corps reached its apogee both in size and experience. The two people in charge of the RAMC in the Great War were Arthur Sloggett,[20] the senior RAMC officer seconded to the IYH in Deelfontein who acquiesced in all Fripp's surprising innovations, and Alfred Keogh, whom Fripp recommended to Brodrick as an RAMC man well-regarded when Registrar of No.3 General Hospital in Cape Town.[21] Its main base was for long the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital at Millbank, London (now closed).[22] It set up a network of military general hospitals around the United Kingdom[23] and established clinics and hospitals in countries where there were British troops. Major-General Sir William Macpherson of the RAMC wrote the official Medical History of the War (HMSO 1922).[24]

Army surgeons carry out an operation during the Second World War

Before the Second World War, RAMC recruits were required to be at least 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m) tall, and could enlist up to 30 years of age. They initially enlisted for seven years with the colours, and a further five years with the reserve, or three years and nine years. They trained for six months at the RAMC Depot, Queen Elizabeth Barracks, Church Crookham, before proceeding to specialist trade training. [25] The RAMC Depot moved from Church Crookham to Keogh Barracks in Mytchett in 1964.[26]

RAMC General Hospitals in the First World War

RAMC First World War memorial in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh

The corps established a network of home-country military hospitals for military casualties during the First World War. The hospitals were managed by Territorial Force personnel and were headquartered as follows:[23]

London Command

Eastern Command

Northern Command

Western Command

Southern Command

Scottish Command

Current facilities

The military medical services are now a tri-service body, with the hospital facilities of Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy combined. The main hospital facility is now the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, a joint military-National Health Service centre. The majority of injured service personnel were treated in Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham prior to the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital's opening. There was press coverage critical of the standard of care during the surge of UK military commitments in the years following the second invasion of Iraq,[50] but it was later reported that the care provided to injured troops had significantly improved.[51][52]

military hospital units attached to them but they do not treat operational casualties.[53]

Current units

Insignia

The RAMC has its own distinctive insignia:

  • Dark blue
    Tam o' Shanter headdress with Corps badge on tartan backing, and medical personnel attached to field units with distinctive coloured berets, who usually wear the beret of that unit (e.g. maroon for The Parachute Regiment and sky blue for the Army Air Corps). There is also a small attachment to Special Forces, the Medical Support Unit (MSU) who wear the sandy beret of the SAS.[54]
  • Cap badge depicting the Rod of Asclepius, surmounted by a crown, enclosed within a laurel wreath, with the regimental motto In Arduis Fidelis ("Faithful in Adversity")[1] in a scroll beneath. The cap badge is worn 1 inch above the left eye on the beret. The cap badge of soldiers beneath the rank of Warrant Officer 1 must also be backed by an oval patch of dull cherry-red coloured cloth measuring 3.81 cm (1.5 inches) wide and 6.35 cm (2.5 inches) high sewn directly to the beret.[54]

Colonels-in-Chief

Colonels-in-Chief have been:[18]

Order of precedence

Preceded by
Order of Precedence
 		Succeeded by

Officer ranks

Before 1873 1873–1879[55][56] 1879–1891 1891–1898[57] From 1898[58]
Inspector-General of Hospitals Surgeon-General Surgeon-General Surgeon-Major-General Surgeon-General
Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals Deputy Surgeon-General Deputy Surgeon-General Surgeon-Colonel Colonel
Brigade Surgeon Brigade Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Lieutenant-Colonel
Surgeon-Major Surgeon-Major Surgeon-Major Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel
Surgeon Surgeon-Major Major
Assistant Surgeon Surgeon Surgeon Surgeon-Captain Captain
Surgeon-Lieutenant Lieutenant

Gallantry awards

Since the

Army Medical Services Museum. The corps also has one recipient of both the Victoria Cross and the Iron Cross. One officer was awarded the George Cross in the Second World War. A young member of the corps, Private Michelle Norris, became the first woman to be awarded the Military Cross following her actions in Iraq on 11 June 2006.[60]

One VC is in existence that is not counted in any official records. In 1856, Queen Victoria laid a Victoria Cross beneath the foundation stone of the Royal Victoria Military Hospital, Netley.[61] When the hospital was demolished in 1966, the VC, known as "The Netley VC", was retrieved and is now on display in the Army Medical Services Museum.[61]

Name Award Awarded while serving with Medal held by
Harold Ackroyd VC Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The Royal Berkshire Regiment
Lord Ashcroft Collection
William Allen VC Royal Army Medical Corps att'd Royal Field Artillery
Army Medical Services Museum
William Babtie VC Royal Army Medical Corps AMS Museum
William Bradshaw VC 90th Regiment (The Cameronians) AMS Museum
Noel Chavasse VC
and Bar		 Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The King's (Liverpool Regiment)
Bar: same		 Imperial War Museum
Thomas Crean VC 1st Imperial Light Horse (Natal) AMS Museum
Henry Douglas VC Royal Army Medical Corps AMS Museum
Joseph Farmer VC Army Hospital Corps AMS Museum
John Fox-Russell
 VC Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The Royal Welch Fusiliers AMS Museum
John Green VC Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The Sherwood Foresters AMS Museum
Thomas Hale VC 7th Regiment (The Royal Fusiliers) AMS Museum
Henry Harden VC Royal Army Medical Corps att'd 45 Royal Marine Commando AMS Museum
Edmund Hartley
 VC Cape Mounted Riflemen, SA Forces AMS Museum
Anthony Home
 VC 90th Perthshire Light Infantry AMS Museum
Edgar Inkson
 VC Royal Army Medical Corps att'd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers AMS Museum
Joseph Jee VC 78th Regiment (The Seaforth Highlanders) AMS Museum
Ferdinand Le Quesne
 VC Medical staff Corps Jersey Museum
Owen Lloyd VC Army Medical Department AMS Museum
George Maling
 VC Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The Rifle Brigade AMS Museum
William Manley
 VC
Iron Cross		 Royal Regiment of Artillery
Awarded Iron Cross 1870		 Private Collection
Arthur Martin-Leake VC
and Bar		 VC: South African Constabulary
Bar: Royal Army Medical Corps		 AMS Museum
Valentine Munbee McMaster
 VC Royal Army Medical Corps
Winning his VC during the relief of Lucknow, while serving with the 78th Highlanders		 National War Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
James Mouat VC 6th Dragoons (Inniskilling) AMS Museum
William Nickerson VC Royal Army Medical Corps Privately held
Harry Ranken
 VC Royal Army Medical Corps att'd King's Royal Rifle Corps AMS Museum
James Reynolds VC Army Medical Department AMS Museum
John Sinton VC Indian Medical Service AMS Museum
William Sylvester VC 23rd Regiment (The Royal Welch Fusiliers) AMS Museum

Trades and careers in the 21st century

RAMC officer careers:

RAMC soldier trades:

Military abbreviations applicable to the Medical Corps

Within the military, Medical officers could occupy a number of roles that were dependent on experience, rank and location. Within military documentation, numerous abbreviations were used to identify these roles, of which the following are among the most common.[62]

ADMS Assistant Director Medical Services
CMT Combat Medical Technician (an army medic). Not necessarily a paramedic. There are some (mostly special forces) CMTs who are paramedic-trained, but the term 'paramedic' is protected in law and can only be used by those who are fully qualified and state-registered with the HCPC.
DADMS Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services
DCA Defence Consultant Advisor (the lead clinician for each specialty)
DDGMS Deputy Director General Medical Services
DDMS Deputy Director Medical Services
DG Director General (Medical Services)
DGAMS Director General Army Medical Services (HQ AMD, Camberley / HQ Land Forces, Andover)
DGMS Director General Medical Services
DMS Director Medical Services
EMO Embarkation Medical Officer
GDMO General Duties Medical Officer (a junior army doctor attached to a field unit before commencing higher specialist training)
MCD Military Clinical Director (a senior army Consultant)
MSO Medical Support Officer (non-clinical administrative support role)
MO Medical Officer
OMO Orderly Medical Officer
PMO Principal Medical Officer
RMO Regimental Medical Officer (normally an army
Occupational Medicine
)
SMO Senior Medical Officer (normally a senior army General Practitioner)

Journal

Since 1903, the corps has published an academic journal titled the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps (JRAMC). Its stated aim is to "publish high quality research, reviews and case reports, as well as other invited articles, which pertain to the practice of military medicine in its broadest sense".[63] Submissions are accepted from serving members of all ranks, as well as academics from outside the military. Initially a monthly publication, it is currently published quarterly by BMJ on behalf of the RAMC Association.[63][64]

Museum

The Museum of Military Medicine is based at Keogh Barracks in Mytchett in Surrey.[65]

Band

From 1898 to 1984, the RAMC maintained a

staff band in its ranks. The earliest record of music in the RAMC was in the 1880s when a Corporal of the Medical Staff Corps was sent to Kneller Hall to be trained as a bugler. It was founded officially in 1898, with official permission for the band being given by the Duke of Connaught, first Colonel-in Chief of the RAMC. In 1902, the band had reached a stature to where it could take part in the Coronation Procession of King Edward VII. On 1 January 1939, the RAMC Band was taken over by the Army Council and was officially recognised as a state sponsored band. In 1962, Derek Waterhouse became the first official drum major to be appointed to the band. It was disbanded in 1984, being one of the first to go in the as a result of the restructuring of the Army. It is today retained in the Army Medical Services Band.[66]

Notable personnel

See also

References

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  10. ^ "History of the Royal Army Medical Corps". The Museum of Military Medicine. 30 November 2015. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  11. ^ Hobbes, R. G. (1895). Reminiscences of Seventy Years' Life, Travel and Adventure (vol. II). London: Elliot Stock. p. 197.
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  14. ^ a b Burdett, Sir Henry C. (1893). Hospitals and Asylums of the World - volume III. London: J. & A. Churchill. p. 723.
  15. ^ London and Provincial Medical Directory, 1860, John Churchill, London; on the AMS see Hampshire and QARANC both accessed 29 November 2010
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  18. ^ a b "Royal Army Medical Corps". Regiments.org. Archived from the original on 9 February 2006. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  19. ^ "Fripp, Sir Alfred Downing (1865–1930)". Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Online. Royal College of Surgeons of England. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  20. ^ "Sloggett, Sir Arthur Thomas (1857–1929)". Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Online. Royal College of Surgeons of England. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  21. ^ "Keogh, Sir Alfred Henry (1857–1936)". Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Online. Royal College of Surgeons of England. 31 July 2013. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  22. ^ "Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital". Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  23. ^ a b "RAMC Units". RAMC. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  24. ^ Macpherson, Sir William (1922). Medical services, surgery of the war. History of the great war based on official documents. HMSO.
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  52. ^ Evans, Michael (7 March 2009). "Chain of care: from front line to Selly Oak Hospital". The Times. Times Newspapers Ltd. Retrieved 21 March 2009.
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  54. ^ a b c "'Crap Hats', Berets and Peak Caps" (PDF). Boot Camp & Military Fitness Institute. 15 August 2014. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
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  61. ^ a b "Netley Hospital information". QARANC – Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. Retrieved 16 June 2007.
  62. ^ "Abbreviations Used in Original Documents". Scarlettfinders: British Military Nurses. Retrieved 12 September 2015.
  63. ^ a b "About Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps". BMJ. Retrieved 12 September 2015.
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  66. ^ "History of The Royal Army Medical Corps Staff Band". www.ramcstaffband.co.uk.

Further reading

  • Blair, J.S.G. Centenary History of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 1898–1998. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1998.
  • Brereton, F.S. The Great War and the RAMC. London: Constable, 1919.
  • Leneman, Leah. "Medical Women at War, 1914–1918." Medical History (1994) 38#2 pp: 160–177. online
  • Lovegrove, P. Not Least in the Crusade. A Short History of the RAMC.
    Gale and Polden
    , 1955.
  • Miles, A. E. W. The Accidental Birth of Military Medicine: The Origins of the Royal Army Medical Corps, Civic Books, 2009

Primary sources

  • Oram, A.R. An Army Doctor's Story: Memoirs of Brigadier A.R. Oram 1891–1966, published in paperback and on Kindle 2013

External links

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