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SAN DIEGO— Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) has embraced Gen. George S. Patton’s “you fight like you train” philosophy by utilizing a simulated battlefield in California.
Medical residents and corpsmen are placed in challenging scenarios with limited resources, as they learn to operate on simulated patients wearing surgical cut suits in a field-based training environment.
“This your last opportunity to really experience operational medicine in a training environment before you graduate or go out to your next duty station,” said Capt. Joel Roos, Naval Medical Center San Diego commanding officer at the first Operational Medicine Symposium, held March 12-16.
The purpose of the symposium is to educate attendees on timely and effective combat casualty care in the battlefield or during deployment.
“When you go to medical school, they don’t teach you that you’re going to have to figure out everything, especially for a deployment,” said NMCSD Anesthesiology Residency Director Capt. Eugenio Lujan during his lectures. “You want to use your skill sets as much as possible from training and drills.”
During the symposium, local and foreign medical community members learned to work together and experience operational medicine in various training environments.
More than 100 medical personnel attended the symposium. Local participants included NMCSD staff and 1st Medical Battalion Camp Pendleton, while foreign participants included the medical community from the Royal Navy Medical Service, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and Norwegian Armed Forces.
NMCSD physicians and instructors briefed symposium attendees on topics including operational medicine, medical history, identifying specific injuries, medical equipment limitations, preparing for deployment, and teamwork.
“This is why we care and come to work every day,” said NMCSD Pediatric Anesthesiologist Cmdr. Cory Gaconnet. “I take care of babies, but I am also here to see how we can take care of our brothers and sisters better."
The symposium’s itinerary also included: a test!
Operationally experienced subject matter experts evaluated and guided medical teams during a field surgery simulation-based environment.
“The whole team is being evaluated on mechanics, equipment of the emergency room, where everything is located, and how well they communicate with each other,” said Lt. Amy Hildreth, emergency room staff physician at NMCSD.
Subject matter experts also evaluated medical teams on damage control surgical times.
According to subject matter experts, critical care has improved over the years, and current evacuation time from injury to continental United States is 96 hours compared to 45 days during the Vietnam War.
During a 45-minute emergency room scenario, team members like NMCSD emergency room chief resident Lt. Zane Fayo, shares his experiences in the field surgery tent at an off-site simulated training environment.
“It’s good to be nervous and get the kinks out now, than when we’re doing this [in the field],” said Fayo. “So far it’s learning mostly about getting used to the team and getting more comfortable with the capabilities of the team so that we know how to best use each other’s skills.”
Lt. Lyndsey Kiss, NMCSD General Surgery, agrees with Fayo on the importance of teamwork, and she also learned to appreciate an important skill: communication.
“Communication skills are key,” said Kiss. “You are never going to succeed especially in small teams like these, if you’re not constantly talking to each other,” in the emergency room or in any medical scenario.
Kiss learned that preparation is key to success in any situation, and now looks forward to her first deployment. She plans on sharing her experiences from the symposium with her department.
“Learning the ability of your team members and learning to cross train your team, you can get the maximum utilization out of all your resources and just knowing how to fit all those pieces together and give yourself the best chance of success in any situation.”
Participants like Lt. Cmdr. Jane Stamey, said that she would like to see future operational medicine symposiums at NMCSD.
“I learned how to care for people in an austere environment with the resources that we have on hand. This is the most realistic training we have to prepare for a deployment,” said Stamey.
For more information, visit www.navy.mil, www.facebook.com/usnavy, or www.twitter.com/usnavy.
For more news on Naval Medical Center San Diego, visit www.navy.mil/local/sd/
| Date Taken: | 03.12.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 05.16.2018 00:15 |
| Story ID: | 277157 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 52 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Training for Battlefield, Critical Care Saves Lives, by PO1 Indra Beaufort, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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