In late October 2025, CSTS and PSY Scientists provided training in Combat and Operational Stress Control (COSC) as a core component in military medical education. In line with USU’s mission to prepare uniformed health professionals to support the readiness of the US Armed Forces, CSTS and PSY Scientists engaged in curriculum preparation, faculty development, and direct teaching as part of the annual medical field training exercise called Operation Bushmaster.

This undertaking includes preparing senior USU and international students, as well as active-duty residents, to operate in forward medical units in a complex frontline simulation over four days, culminating in a mass casualty event. Students treated a continuous stream of battlefield casualties and non-battle injuries, as well as conducted public health outreach activities while on a simulated combat deployment. Differentiating the assessment, disposition, and treatment of psychiatric illnesses were core skills uniquely taught on the field.

Understanding the relationship of military occupational specialties (MOSs) to suicide attempt (SA) among US Army soldiers, and the patterns of these associations over time, can identify periods of increased risk and inform prevention and treatment efforts. The current study, coauthored by Dr. Holly B.H. Mash et al., aimed to identify SA risk and sociodemographic and service-related risk factors for SA among infantry, combat engineers, and combat medics, soldiers identified in previous research to have elevated suicidal behavior rates relative to soldiers in other MOSs. This examination also builds on previous work (2004-2009) by including women, who were integrated into previously closed combat arms billets in 2016.

Digital social technologies, such as social media and online multiplayer video games (MVGs), have ushered in an era of peer relationships that evolve online, in addition to in person. This report, authored by Mr. Luke Sumberg and colleagues, reviews existing research about the dual role of social media and MVGs in shaping youth social connectedness, recognizing both their potential benefits and their associated risks on youth mental health. By providing evidence-based insights, it aims to inform strategies that optimize these technologies’ advantages while safeguarding youth mental health and well-being.

In this issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics, Dr. Edmund G. Howe and colleagues who knew bioethicist and lawyer Nancy Dubler celebrate her and the most important contributions she made to the practice of clinical ethics consultation (CEC). Her insights and the many discussions here include the unmet needs of prisoners, optimal approaches to bioethics mediation that prioritize the feelings of and relations between people, ethics consultants asking families of patients who can’t speak for themselves what the patient was like as a person before they discuss ethics, allocating resources consistently and fairly, learning CEC by role-playing in disempowered roles, distinguishing what is ethical from what is legal, increasing contributions from nonmedical people, increasing interconnections between health systems and the broader bioethics community, replacing oral feedings with tube feedings, fostering substitute decision makers whom patients most want, and appreciating root causes of patients’ and families’ mistrust. All these topics are likely to be optimal CEC practices, if not already implemented.

In this publication, Dr. Quinn M. Biggs and colleagues discuss the four symptom clusters of PTSD: intrusion, avoidance, negative cognitions/mood, and hyperarousal. Little is known about the extent to which the intensity of the symptom clusters vary from moment-to-moment. Using an ecological momentary assessment methodology, this study examined within day variation in the four PTSD symptom clusters.