On the Final Day of MHSRS 2026, USU Research Turns to AI and Women’s Health

On Day 4 of MHSRS 2026, USU researchers show how AI can guide combat wound care and how data can protect servicewomen’s health.

Uniformed Services University researchers presented on the final day of the 2026 Military Health System Research Symposium in Kissimmee, Fla. (USU graphic)

August 10, 2026 by USU News

The 2026 Military Health System Research Symposium (MHSRS) closed on Aug. 6 with Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) researchers working across military medicine: artificial intelligence at the point of injury, the security of the drug supply, the hidden dangers of hard training, and the health of the women who serve. Some of the work came from USU’s newest students. Faculty, meanwhile, showed what military health data can reveal about pregnancy, injury, and access to care. 

AI Comes to Combat Wound Care

Dr. Dominic Nathan, an adjunct assistant professor of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics (PMB) at USU, co-moderated a full-day session on artificial intelligence and machine learning in military medicine, now in its fourth year. The talks showed how AI and data tools could help in austere settings and sharpen warfighter performance. Several came from USU students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

One came from 2nd Lt. Cameron Leonard, a fourth-year medical student at USU. She asked a practical question: can a photo help a surgeon know when a wound is ready to close? Deep combat wounds often need several surgeries before closure. A hidden danger is critical colonization, a bacterial load high enough to stall healing and make a closure fail. It is defined as more than 100,000 bacteria per gram of tissue.

Leonard’s team studied 116 combat extremity wounds treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. They pulled color-signal data from 373 clinical photos and paired it with routine measures such as white blood cell counts and temperature. A machine learning model that combined the two flagged critical colonization with moderate accuracy. Leonard was careful about the limits. The tool is meant to support a surgeon’s judgment, not replace it. The work is supported through USU’s Surgical Critical Care Initiative (SC2i).

2nd Lt. Cameron Leonard (left) and Dr. Dominic Nathan (right) take part in the machine learning and artificial intelligence session at the 2026 Military Health System Research Symposium, where Leonard presented research on predicting combat wound complications and Nathan co-moderated. (USU photo)

A First-Year Student Tackles the Drug Supply

More of the USU work came from its newest students. U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Massimo Qasemi, a first-year medical student in the Class of 2030, was accepted to present in the “Biomanufacturing for Supply Chain Resilience” session. Qasemi’s research, presented by his mentor, retired Army Col. Vic Suarez, asks how the Department of War (DoW) could use its logistics strength to boost drug manufacturing at home and keep medicine flowing to the force in a crisis. The idea grew out of an internship Qasemi did with the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Health Program, where he studied biodefense and pharmaceutical supply chains. 

The Hidden Dangers of Difficult Training

Dr. Francis O’Connor, a professor of Military and Emergency Medicine at USU and medical director of its Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP), opened a session on the injuries hard training can cause. His own focus was exertional rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of muscle tissue that is largely preventable but can turn serious. The military recorded 521 cases in 2025. O’Connor said the condition runs across a wide range, from mild and symptom-free to life-threatening, so not every case needs a hospital stay.

To help clinicians tell the difference, CHAMP led a new joint clinical practice guideline. It gives providers a clearer way to judge risk, choose treatment, check repeat cases for an underlying cause, and return warfighters to training and duty safely. O’Connor tied the work to wider efforts, including the Army Heat Center and USU’s Warrior Heat and Exertion Related Events Collaborative.

Two talks in the same session turned to a rarer danger: sudden cardiac death. It strikes people in hard training more often than college athletes, about 11 deaths per 100,000 recruits, compared with fewer than two among NCAA athletes. On a training range, help is often far away.

Dr. Alaric Franzos, an associate professor of Medicine at USU and a retired Navy captain who directs biomedical research for the university’s Military Cardiovascular Outcomes Research (MiCOR) program, tested whether a quick heart scan could catch the problem early. His team studied the feasibility of adding an electrocardiogram, or ECG, to entry-level training, part of a program called ERASE. An ECG can flag most of the conditions that cause sudden cardiac death, and the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act now directs the military to pilot ECG screening for new recruits. Franzos’s work asked whether the scans can be done fast enough at busy accession points and fed into the military’s health record.

Working through USU’s Military Cardiac Arrest Program (MiCAP) with the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, Emma Schopp, a genetic counselor and an assistant professor of Medicine at USU, and her team ran genetic testing in 56 sudden deaths of adults in the military health system. About 18 percent turned up a genetic cause. Finding that cause can do more than close a case; it can warn a service member’s relatives that they may carry the same inherited risk. The program partners with the Metis Foundation, an outside nonprofit dedicated to advancing military medical research. 

Dr. Francis O'Connor, a professor at USU and medical director of its Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP), presents on exertional rhabdomyolysis at the 2026 Military Health System Research Symposium. (USU photo)

Advancing Military Women’s Health

On the symposium’s last morning, USU faculty filled much of a session on military women’s health. Dr. Lynette Hamlin, director of USU's Military Women's Health Research Program and professor and associate dean for Faculty Affairs at USU's Daniel K. Inouye Graduate School of Nursing (GSN), and Dr. Angela M. Simmons, associate director for Research in the Military Women's Health Research Program and nurse scientist for the GSN, moderated the session. The goal was to build evidence that keeps servicewomen healthy and ready. 

Dr. Elizabeth Hisle-Gorman, an associate professor of Pediatrics at USU, studied injury risk during and after pregnancy. She used military health records from 2013 to 2025, comparing more than 2.5 million non-pregnant person-years with pregnant and postpartum periods. The result ran against expectations. Overall musculoskeletal injury, the strains, sprains, and stress fractures that sideline troops, was lower during pregnancy and the year after, not higher. But some injuries did rise. Spine and back injuries went up during pregnancy, and spine, back, and upper-body injuries went up afterward. Protecting the back, she said, deserves special attention in prenatal and postpartum care.

A second study looked at a rarely discussed problem: pelvic floor disorders. Dr. Bhavna Singichetti presented it for a team working with USU’s Center for Health Services Research (CHSR). The researchers reviewed records for 87,206 active-duty servicewomen newly diagnosed with a pelvic floor disorder. Nearly two-thirds had a musculoskeletal injury in the two years before, most often in the legs or lower back. The link was strongest for stress and fecal incontinence. The team’s advice: add pelvic floor screening to orthopedic rehabilitation, so problems are caught earlier.

Dr. Angela M. Simmons (left) and Dr. Lynette Hamlin co-moderated the military women's health session at the 2026 Military Health System Research Symposium. (USU photo)

Dr. Tracey Pérez Koehlmoos, director of USU’s CHSR and a professor of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics, mapped who can reach emergency childbirth care in time. Using 2024 Census survey data and Defense Health Agency (DHA) facility lists, her team measured 30-minute drives to hospitals that handle obstetric emergencies. Only about half of TRICARE beneficiaries live within a 30-minute drive of that care. At the same time, nearly 3 million American women live within 30 minutes of a military hospital that offers it. Four military hospitals are the only such option in their area, including Blanchfield and Weed Army Community Hospitals in Kentucky and California, respectively. Military deliveries have fallen from about 120,000 a year to about 80,000. Koehlmoos framed the change as a shared turning point. 

“This is a major change in the Military Health System that all of us are witnessing together,” Koehlmoos said.

To keep care teams sharp and ease shortages in nearby communities, she suggested opening military hospitals to civilian maternity patients, much as military trauma centers already take civilian cases.

The last day leaned toward prevention. Whether the tool is a model reading a wound photo or a map of who can reach a delivery room in time, the aim is the same: keeping every service member healthy and ready.