Southwest Asia -- Imagine walking into your duty section and this is what you come across: one person has a hoarse sounding cough, another person is sneezing out of control, there is someone in the bathroom and another one has a red nose because they are constantly blowing it. You start thinking something is not quite right here, so you ask yourself -- “who you gonna call?”
Sadly, the Ghostbusters are fictional characters. Fortunately, members of public health and bioenvironmental engineering make up the Preventive Medicine clinic, which are committed to keeping every Airman here free of illness and injury.
“The two teams also augment each other during emergency responses such as Chemical, Biological, Radiation and Nuclear or disease outbreaks,” said Maj. Don, Aeromedical Dental Flight commander.
The public health two-person team works interchangeably to ensure each member on base remains free of any foodborne illness, disease and non-battle injuries.
“Our mission is to prevent diseases that are more common in a deployed environment,” said Tech. Sgt. Jenn, public health technician, who is currently deployed from Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. “It could be anything from preventing a foodborne illness to an outbreak of upper respiratory infections. You name it, anything nasty, we want to prevent it.”
The public health team inspects food temperatures and preparation as well as food and public facilities for safety reasons.
“When we go into a facility, there are certain key things that can go wrong with any kind of food,” said Jenn, a native of Vallejo, Calif. “We want to make sure that the temperature is not an issue or that proper food handling is not an issue.”
The team’s diligence and attention to detail extends to their disease and non-battle injury prevention efforts.
“Every day we look at the previous day’s clinic visits and looks for signs, like coughing, diarrhea, vomiting, etc., that might set off an alarm that something is going on,” said Jenn. “Essentially, we are looking for commonalities or spikes in diseases that can have detrimental outcomes on large groups.”
Aside from making sure every Airmen is free of illness or injury, the public health team also keeps the base free of pesky, disgusting insects that can bring diseases to an area.
“We monitor for any pests or nuance insects like mosquitos, cockroaches and mice, just to name a few,” said Jenn. “We survey the base and make sure that none of those pests are here, and if found, we set traps for them.”
Similar to their public health counterparts, bioenvironmental engineering is also committed to protecting every Airman from illness or injury.
“Anything in the work environment that can cause you to get sick or cause a potential injury that can negatively affect you at work is what we are trying to control and mitigate,” said Staff Sgt. Jayomar, bioenvironmental engineering technician, currently deployed from Offut Air Force Base, Neb.
While the bioenvironmental engineering flight is responsible for many things, one of their biggest concerns here is the water supply.
“Ensuring the safety of the water supply in the food and public facilities is our number one priority,” said Jayomar, a native of Belleville, Ill. “We have to keep the Airmen from getting sick so they can carry out their missions.”
The flight also carries out other functions that are completed by bioenvironmental engineering flights at home stations as well.
“We are making sure people have their protected procedures in place and they are wearing their proper protective equipment,” said Jayomar. “If everything is in place, and people are following procedures appropriately, then theoretically they shouldn’t get hurt or get sick at work.”
One of the most well-known jobs performed by bioenvironmental engineering is emergency response at an accident scene.
“We have various suits and gear that we will bring out to identify hazards so that people can properly take care of what needs to be done,” said Jayomar. “We want to identify and mitigate anything that will hurt [Airmen] so they can properly and safely accomplish the mission.”
In the end, both teams have the same relative mission when it comes to keeping Airmen safe.
“In a deployed environment, sanitation as well as safe food, water, and workplaces are essential to ensuring both healthy personnel and execution of the Wing's mission,” said Don. “Injury and illness can quickly degrade mission capability. Preventive medicine is a force multiplier - the more warriors in the fight the better.”
(Editor’s note: Due to safety and security reasons, last names and unit designators were removed.)