311th Field Hospital Trains With Emphasis on Safety

Photo By Zachary Mott | Army Reserve Soldiers from the 311th Field Hospital follow the instructions for setting up container based field hospital while at the Regional Training Site-Medical at Fort McCoy, Wis., March 25, 2021. The container system allows specialized medical equipment to be transported safely and efficiently to austere environments in order to provide essential medical services to those in need.  

BLACKLICK, OH, UNITED STATES

03.25.2021

Story by Cheryl Phillips 

88th Readiness Division

FORT McCOY, Wis. – Preparing to support the annual Orient Shield exercise in Japan, the 311th Field Hospital spent March 21-27, 2021, at the Regional Training Site-Medical here burnishing their skills practicing important tasks.

One of the areas in which unit members trained was the assembly and disassembly of International Standards Organization – or ISO – units, which in aggregate is a container-based hospital. This training is important because it’s the physical hospital the unit will use when performing its mission.

“It’s a fully functional field hospital with a lab, intermediate care wards, X-ray, pharmacy, emergency medical, pre-op and central medical supplies. It contains everything for our hospital” said Maj. Janice McDaniel, a physician with the unit. She had never worked with an ISO unit before and found it challenging because it was a new skill.

The most beneficial part of the training was “getting out here and physically doing the training. We need to problem solve and perform the training safely, McDaniel said.

Despite conducting outdoor training on a cool spring day in Wisconsin with an overcast sky and temperatures in the upper 40s, McDaniel thought that Fort McCoy “is an ideal location for training, especially since we don’t have the equipment to train at the unit.”

Another area in which unit Soldiers trained was using a motorized dolly to move military vans containing medical equipment to various sites.

Spc. Mitchel Frasher, a unit pharmacy technician, found the emphasis on safety to be a valuable aspect of the training. “Repetition of the task is also important,” he said. “That helps us be good at what we do and to be able to teach others on the task correctly.”

Frasher echoed McDaniel that Fort McCoy was a good site for training since the unit doesn’t have a motorized dolly. He has experience working with a non-motorized version.

The 35-person unit from Blacklick, Ohio, also trained on how to design a plan to lay out and stake TEMPER – or Tent Extendable Modular Personnel – tents, and coordinate with the power and water teams to support hospital functions.

• Date Taken: 03.25.2021
• Date Posted: 03.25.2021 15:53
• Story ID: 392305
• Location: BLACKLICK, OH, US