War medicine with special focus on preparedness and how we actually prepare - Report from the War and Disaster Medicine Conference 2025

The Estonian Defence Forces and the Estonian Health Board organized the 18th War and Disaster Medicine Conference on December 4–5, 2025, in Tartu, Estonia. The theme this year was war medicine with a particular focus on ethics, the laws of war, civil–military cooperation, and experiences from ongoing armed conflicts. 

Speakers and participants included physicians and other experts from both civil defense organizations and various armed forces, among them representatives from Estonia, Finland, and Ukraine.

One of the participants was Karl Chevally, senior consultant in anesthesiology and intensive care medicine and researcher at the Centre for Disaster Medicine (CKM) at the University of Gothenburg. He represented CKM on behalf of the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare and has recently submitted his report from the conference to the authority.

Highly applicable to Swedish needs

"The conference was well organized and featured highly regarded experts in war medicine. The conclusions and recommendations presented are considered to be well aligned with Swedish needs in both civilian and military war medicine. The identified general needs, descriptions of wartime systems, as well as casualty estimates and capability assessments largely correspond to the former Swedish total defense wartime organization and preparedness planning."

He now hopes that the report will be useful in the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare’s ongoing work on preparedness planning and civil defense.

Below are the headings of the 12 focus areas presented in the report. 

1. War medicine places fundamentally different demands than peacetime healthcare
2. Planning for the worst-case scenario
3. Prepared alternative healthcare facilities and protective measures
4. Education and training are given special importance
5. Training in war surgery
6. Ethics and decision-making in war medicine are of central importance
7. Preparedness planning
8. A major need for extensive medical transportation at local, regional, and national levels, unparalleled in peacetime
9. Delayed evacuation and field medical care
10. Medical teams with physicians
11. Planning should not be based solely on the most recent conflict or crisis
12. The need for field hospitals was highlighted in particular

The full report is available for download on the website; see the fact box below.

Text: Susanne Lj Westergren