A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine, but it has also been used to describe alternate care sites used in disasters and other emergency situations.

The term military medicine has a number of potential connotations. It may mean:A medical specialty, specifically a branch of occupational medicine attending to the medical risks and needs of soldiers, sailors and other service members. This disparate arena has historically involved the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, and, in the 20th century, the ergonomics and health effects of operating military-specific machines and equipment such as submarines, tanks, helicopters and airplanes. Undersea and aviation medicine can be understood as subspecialties of military medicine, or in any case originated as such. Few countries certify or recognize "military medicine" as a formal speciality or subspeciality in its own right. The planning and practice of the surgical management of mass battlefield casualties and the logistical and administrative considerations of establishing and operating combat support hospitals. This involves military medical hierarchies, especially the organization of structured medical command and administrative systems that interact with and support deployed combat units. The administration and practice of health care for military service members and their dependents in non-deployed (peacetime) settings. This may consist of a medical system paralleling all the medical specialties and sub-specialties that exist in the civilian sector. Medical research and development specifically bearing upon problems of military medical interest. Historically, this encompasses all of the medical advances emerging from medical research efforts directed at addressing the problems encountered by deployed military forces many of which ultimately prove important beyond the purely military considerations that inspired them.