Medical Teams Take on the Gunpowder Challenge

FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MD, UNITED STATES

04.11.2016

Courtesy Story

All Hands Magazine

Third year medical students at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences are not your typical medical students. This is not your average medical school. These students are not only preparing to save lives in the hospital operating room but out on the battlefield as well.

Sixteen teams of uniformed medical students competed against each other in the annual “Gunpowder Challenge.” The gunpowder challenge is a two-day field exercise to help medical students develop team-based military leadership, medical expertise and communication skills.

“The goals of the exercise were to develop team based military and medical leadership and communication skills and experience how stress affects performance during crisis situations,” said Cmdr. James Palma. “We are very proud of these students and their efforts over the past two days and we are happy that you are going to be the leaders of our military healthcare system in the future.”

The first day of the challenge is spent in small groups rotating through four training stations to prepare them for the timed race on the second day. The four stations are advanced trauma life support scenarios, improvisation, tactical combat casualty care, and bushmaster.

“It was really good to be able to go through all the exercises on the first day before the race,” said Ens. Megan Ohmer. “Having the ability to fail when nothing really terrible happens, learn from your mistakes and then try again the next day and improve your performance was a valuable earning experience.”

The advanced trauma life support scenarios allow the students to practice skills such as placement of chest tubes and IVs using simulated dummies.

In the tactical combat casualty care (TCC) scenario, there is an active shooter who has shot and wounded a number of people before being killed himself. Students must use cut suits, human-worn simulators that allow actual cutting, suturing, IV insertion, chest tube placement and can produce "blood" and other things to make the scenario very realistic.

“We got to take all the field knowledge we’ve learned and apply it in a real world setting,” said Ens. Yarrow Sheldon. “These exercises allowed us to take our lessons out of the lecture hall and apply them in actual simulations.”

The “Operation Bushmaster Rehearsal of Concepts” session is similar to a "war-gaming" event. Two platoons at a time, in separate rooms, have sand tables with sophisticated props where they lay out the Bushmaster operation site and run through scenarios as if their platoon was responding, while rotating leadership and other important team roles. The Bushmaster training exercise concludes with a simulated convoy attack, resulting in mass casualties.

The Improvisation exercise takes place in the woods behind the university and students try and figure out ways to evacuate casualties using minimal equipment. The casualties must be evacuated across a stream from one side of the bank to the other. Students construct a rope bridge and use it in their efforts.

“I didn’t really know what to expect from Gunpowder,” said Sheldon. “It was great real world experience for when we graduate next year because we got to practice all the things we’ve been taught in new situations.”

On the second day of the field practicum, students participate in the “Gunpowder Challenge,” named for the originally intended training site, the Gunpowder Military Reservation in Baltimore. The site was not used in its inaugural year because of heavy snow and the training was returned to the school’s Bethesda campus, but the name stuck.

The Gunpowder Challenge adventure race incorporates 16 skills stations that include mass casualty triaging, identifying a traumatic brain injury, litter obstacle course, two ATLS stations and an ACLS station that involve the use of medical simulation technology, a hunt for the Bushmaster Go-Book (the plan for the entire operation), trauma ultrasound, casualty evacuation, the rope bridge, improvisation, regular triage, breaking bad news to patients, and cut suits.

The course is divided into several zones with an average of four stations per zone. It is an all out race to the finish. Students must complete each station within a specified time limit to earn points. They must complete at least two stations in each zone to finish the race, but will earn an extra 10 points for each zone in which they complete at least three or more stations. If a station involves a leadership role, each member of the team will take a turn in that role. The students have approximately 5 ½ hours to complete the race. To make it even more interesting the students are not in the same groups they were in on day one which forces them to communicate and work together.

“The hardest part was being thrown into a new team on the day of the exercise,” said Ens. Kathleen Kramer. “We had to start all over from scratch and be flexible which was definitely a challenge.”

• Date Taken: 04.11.2016
• Date Posted: 04.14.2016 08:17
• Story ID: 195366
• Location: FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MD, US