What it is
AMedP-7.3 is NATO's Allied Medical Publication setting out the training requirements for medical personnel who provide CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) medical support on NATO operations. It is a training-requirements framework, not a clinical manual: it defines who needs which level of CBRN medical training and when in a career and deployment cycle that training should happen, and it leaves the clinical content itself to companion publications.
The publication binds through ratified agreement rather than a supplier contract. Nations agree to use it by ratifying STANAG 2954, the Standardization Agreement that covers AMedP-7.3, and a nation may ratify with recorded reservations - two are recorded against this edition. That agreement runs between NATO nations. AMedP-7.3 places no obligation on a company: it does not address suppliers, manufacturers or contractors, and it names no certification scheme that any organisation could hold.
Who it trains
AMedP-7.3 addresses NATO's own military medical organisation. It defines medical personnel broadly: clinical professionals, medics, pharmacists, allied health professionals, health-related technicians, veterinarians and medical service personnel with responsibilities for medical command and logistics. Training sets out three operational roles for these cadres to be prepared for - direct CBRN casualty care, medical technical support (from preventive medicine, laboratory, pharmacy or radiology personnel), and CBRN medical advice and planning support to commanders - and, through Annex F, extends to the officers and senior NCOs who provide that advisory role. Edition A, Version 1 (June 2016) is the current edition, and the document gives no indication of a prior edition it supersedes.
How training is organised
Training runs on a competency framework of three levels - awareness, basic (provider) and advanced - that map to a medical role's scope of practice and how far into the casualty-care pathway that role operates. Which cadre needs which level for which task is fixed in Annexes B and D rather than left to local choice; this page does not reproduce that framework.
That training is delivered at four points across a career and deployment cycle:
- New-entry (core) training, provided to all medical personnel, typically at the professional training stage that follows basic military training.
- Special-to-role training, for clinical specialists - the document names emergency medicine, intensive care medicine, anaesthesia, acute and internal medicine, pre-hospital emergency care, preventive (occupational) medicine, public health, infection prevention and control and primary health care among the specialties involved - and separately for medical technical specialists (environmental health, laboratory, radiology and pharmacy personnel) and CBRN medical advisors.
- Pre-deployment training, mission-specific, delivered individually or collectively, and valid only for a finite period tied to the deployment it prepares for.
- Collective training, developing a unit's capability through exercises as part of force generation, continuation training and unit pre-deployment work, treated as invalid again once the unit disbands or its personnel turn over.
Every CBRN medical exercise, live or table-top, is expected to conclude with an After Action Report identifying lessons identified, observed best practices, capability gaps, and shortfalls and weaknesses, feeding a post-deployment assessment. That report is the evidence artefact the document describes, not a certificate.
One national reservation records that a nation trains its CBRN Defence specialist role - who carries out some of the tasks and responsibilities AMedP-7.3 describes - under ATP-3.8.1 instead.
What it does not cover
AMedP-7.3 does not itself set out clinical procedures, casualty care content or medical countermeasure detail: casualty-care content sits in AMedP-7.1, and medical-advice content sits in AMedP-7.6. Training requirements for non-medical personnel are covered separately, in AMedP-7.2. It is not a certification scheme, and it does not set requirements a supplier, manufacturer or contractor has to meet: it addresses NATO's own military medical training establishment.