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I would like to welcome all readers to the August 2018 edition of the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps (JRAMC). This issue reflects the breadth of submissions that we are currently receiving, both in subject and locations from around the world. This issue has submissions from seven countries, including Italy,1 Iran,2–5 India,6 New Zealand,7 China8 and the UK.9–20 The edition leads with an editorial by Sir Michael Jacobs,9 consultant in infectious diseases at the Royal Free London, questioning the futility in continuing Ebola virus disease treatment and knowing when not to stop. Colonel Duncan Wilson, consultant physician at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, has kindly written a commentary that follows straight on, explaining the continuing relevance of Ebola to the Defence Medical Services (DMS). Some readers may not be aware but the JRAMC published in 2016 (volume 162, issue 3) a special edition on Ebola including the role of the UK DMS in helping manage the outbreak in Sierra Leone. I would encourage you to read this edition, which is available via our new special editions link on the journal home page, which also highlights forthcoming editions such as Emergency Preparedness and Blast.
I continue to try to push for submissions from the Academic Department of Military Mental Health, based at King’s College London, London, UK, and I have included three of their most recent submissions.11 12 20 In recognition of this I have made the Editor’s choice for this issue their study looking at stigma, mental health and help-seeking in UK military doctors.12 I have also seen considerable interest from authors submitting to JRAMC on resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta, and we have three papers and two letters to the editor on the subject between this issue and forthcoming issues on the subject.4 This is clearly of interest to both the military and humanitarian organisations working in the austere environment, but there appear to be differences in opinion as to applicability, and therefore I hope to publish another of our successful ‘for debate’ linked articles in the near future with authors on different sides. Finally as regular readers will know I continue to heavily support wound ballistics I would encourage you to read the paper by our New Zealand colleagues ascertaining the effects of ageing on the calibration of gelatin.7
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Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.