Lessons from the research and development of a Haptics-Based Combat Medical Training System, as well as summative evaluation findings, are discussed with an emphasis on best practices that can be benchmarked by training stakeholders. The multiyear research effort has yielded informative lessons learned that instructional designers would benefit from when developing similar training technologies. Given the mandate to aggressively minimize preventable deaths, and the difficulties inherent to providing care in foreign theaters, it is necessary to continuously scrutinize and evolve the best practices leveraged to train, certify and sustain medical personnel.