After their civilian training, all our medical personnel receive specialized training. So all those employees receive normal training, whatever their area, as clinicians, for example, as paramedics, as medical technicians, as surgeons or medical specialists. At the same time, they are also placed in university trauma centres in each region; that is especially the case with clinical specialists. Even in peace time, here in Canada, they continue to be exposed to very complex trauma cases. Before every deployment, they get a great deal of additional training. At the same time, they have professional training programs, such as going to conferences specifically on combat medicine. There are two training centres for trauma injuries, one in Montreal and one in Vancouver. There, all our personnel work together as a team and get additional training on combat injuries. In basic training, which is held in the school at Borden, personnel are trained to deal with disaster victims, chemical and biological weapons, tropical medicine, and so on.
Our medical technicians receive very specialized training in tactical medicine. They learn to care for war injuries in realistic combat conditions, with smoke or explosions, in the cold or dark. In addition, all medical units receive training in teamwork so that their skills are at a high level from the moment they arrive in Afghanistan, or any other theatre of war, and from the first injury they have to treat.