Psychological resilience on the frontlines: Operational Resilience Training for Ukrainian combat medics

On the battlefield, combat medics need to both support service members’ physical health, and their psychological resilience and mental health. Despite the importance of their role, combat medics are typically not trained in resilience and mental health, and for units mobilized rapidly in response to a country-wide threat, the need to address this gap is particularly critical. Consistent with this challenge, Operational Resilience Training (ORT) was developed by a combined Norwegian-US initiative to provide Ukrainian combat medics with psychological resilience skills necessary for frontline service. ORT was evaluated using surveys before and after the two-day training (N = 145); a sub-sample was also surveyed again one month later (n = 39). Findings indicated more than 90% of participants found the training to be useful and relevant, and that participants intended to use the skills they learned when returning to combat. Moreover, there was a significant and temporally stable increase in trainees’ confidence in psychological self-care and peer support abilities. The results highlight the importance of integrating resilience training into military medical curricula, particularly for medics operating at the frontlines. These insights may inform the development of resilience programs across NATO and allied forces facing similar operational demands.