104th Fighter Wing Airmen help provide $1.3 million in medical services in Georgia

Photo By Randall Burlingame | Staff Sgt. Kelley McLean, 104th Medical Group aerospace medical technician, provides a local resident with optometry care during the East Central Georgia Innovative Readiness Training event that took place June 15 to 22, in Georgia. Airmen from the 104th MDG worked with 139 other military members to provide local residents with over $1.3 million in no-cost medical services while receiving beneficial hands-on training in the process.  

GA, UNITED STATES

07.02.2019

Story by Airman 1st Class Randall Burlingame 

104th Fighter Wing

Eleven Airmen from the 104th Medical Group participated in the 12-day East Central Georgia Innovative Readiness Training event June 15 to 22, in Georgia.

The 104th MDG Airmen worked with 139 other military members from the Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve, active-duty Air Force and Navy Reserve. Together the joint team provided local residents with over $1.3 million in no-cost medical services while receiving beneficial hands-on training in the process.

The military members provided 2,609 patients in five counties with dental and optometry care, as well as a variety of medical services to include educational topics. They also administered sports physicals for a local high school and occupational physicals.

“It was awesome,” said Staff Sgt. Kelley McLean, 104th MDG aerospace medical technician. “I got so much training in the optometry area. Just being able to treat so many patients and help them get eye glasses was very humbling and very rewarding.”

According to McLean, the ANG no longer has optometry technicians, and those duties now fall on aerospace medical technicians. After receiving the training during IRT, she now feels as though she can apply those skills to help members at the 104th Fighter Wing, she said.

“I learned a whole other career field while I was down there,” said McLean. “I worked with an optometrist and he taught me so much about everything about eyes, and everything optometry technicians do.”

There was limited access to healthcare in the counties they were working in, said Master Sgt. Kylie Burns-Whalen, 104th MDG health services management superintendent. One county only had one part-time physician’s assistant and some of the patients may have never seen a doctor or dentist before that, she said.

“That was their first contact with any preventative medicine,” said Burns-Whalen. “It’s a really humbling experience.”

This was the first IRT for many of the 104th MDG Airmen, and Burns-Whalen says she plans to attend more in the future.

“I think the training is better than anything any of us have actually received,” said Burns-Whalen “It’s so focused on readiness and tasks that you normally would not get to do on a drill weekend.”

• Date Taken: 07.02.2019
• Date Posted: 07.02.2019 09:33
• Story ID: 330061
• Location: GA, US