Iraqi medics learn MWD medicine at Balad

Published July 3, 2010
By Staff Sgt. Stacy Fowler
332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs Office

JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq -- The doctor makes meticulous cuts to the skin of his sedated patient, while gently tugging at a blob of tissue slowly coming out from underneath the flesh.

"As you can see, the mass has definitive borders from the normal tissue around it, and this makes it much easier to remove from the patient," he says softly to his audience, who watches every move intently as the tissue emerges.

The lesson continued, questions and medical jargon flowing back and forth over as the doctor removed a small tumor from his patient, for two Iraqi veterinarians from the Baghdad Police College Canine Directorate during surgery in the Joint Base Balad Veterinary Hospital June 28, 2010.

The U.S. Army veterinarians at Balad are training host-nation veterinarians on the ins-and-outs of small animal medicine, according to Army Maj. Matt Takara, 51st Medical Detachment (Veterinary Medicine) commander and chief medical consultant for all MWD units in Iraq.

"The Baghdad Police College Canine Directorate has started their own working dog units around Iraq, and want to set up a Level III facility in a central location for their MWDs; but most Iraqi vets have very limited training in small-animal treatment, if any at all," said Major Takara, a native of Pueblo, Colo. "That is where we come in. Our facility has all the capabilities of a small animal veterinary clinic in the U.S."

A Level-III facility, according to Major Takara, has the ability to operate and provide routine, critical and intermediate care, including radiology and routine and specialized dental care. These facilities are staffed 24 hours a day with one veterinarian and at least one veterinary technician.

"Baghdad College wants to use our facility here at JBB as a template for their clinic, because we have the manpower, the equipment and the personnel to show them the way," he said. "While the veterinarians are here, we will expose them to a variety of laboratory tests and procedures. They will have the opportunity to observe our technicians performing the lab tests, and will work with them to interpret the test results."

The JBB veterinarian staff usually sees between 10-15 dogs a week, covering everything from same-day sick call, and emergency and routine appointments.

According to Major Takara, there is a steady flow of potential teaching opportunities for the Iraqi vets; the more hands-on practical experience they receive, the better they will be able to provide quality care for their own working dogs.

"We are helping the Iraqi people take back control of their country, and this is just one part of many during this transition," Major Takara said. With the Iraqis better able to patrol using their own working dogs, this will help free up the U.S. dog teams to support other mission requirements. In addition, the Iraqis won't have to rely on other countries for their working dog capability.

During a break in training, the Iraqi veterinarians took a moment to absorb the sheer amount of information they received in just a few days of training, and had words of praise for their American instructors.

"We never studied anything in our schools smaller than what you would consider livestock: cows, pigs and other larger animals," one of the Iraqi veterinarians said. "What makes this training more effective is that many of the words we use as doctors are based on Latin terms, and English terms learned in most of our initial [veterinary] training. But this is a lot of new information that we must learn in a very short time. Luckily the major and the technicians here have been very professional and knowledgeable."