Dr. John Henry Hagmann Archives

By Debbie Gregory.

A retired Army doctor’s Virginia medical license has been suspended after allegations that he employed improper training methods while working with military medical students. It is also alleged that Dr. John Henry Hagmann provided large amounts of alcohol to the students during instruction, and manipulated and photographed the genitals of an inebriated participant.

Since retiring from the U.S. Army in 2000, Dr. Hagmann has helped train thousands of soldiers and medical personnel in how to treat battlefield wounds. His company, Deployment Medicine International (DMI), has received more than $10.5 million in business from the federal government.

Dr. Hagmann has long been on the radar of animal activists, who contend that his use of live, wounded pigs to simulate combat injuries is unnecessarily cruel.

But these aren’t the only troubling accusations.

Hagmann was cited for training he provided in 2012 and 2013 in Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado and Great Britain. Students testified that the doctor also performed penile nerve blocks and instructed them to insert catheters into one another’s genitals.

Two students provided the board with pictures of chest scars they received when procedures went awry. Three students testified that others became violently ill or began hallucinating after Hagmann gave them ketamine.

Colonel Neil Page, who investigated the matter for the Uniformed Service University for the Health Sciences, the military medical school, testified that Hagmann’s defense that the students volunteered for procedures is irrelevant because they were intoxicated.

In the Army, Hagmann practiced emergency medicine for two decades. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and co-authored an influential combat treatment manual.

After retiring, Hagmann founded DMI, based in Gig Harbor, Washington. Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, demand for his courses grew and DMI emerged as a preeminent trauma-response trainer. The majority of DMI’s government contracts were with the U.S. DMI has been dropped as a military contractor for the Navy and Special Forces.

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