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Sather medics prepare for worst, provide their best

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Amanda Callahan
  • 447th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
SATHER AIR BASE, Iraq --  "Bag him!" "I need an X-ray in here!" "I've got an abnormal rhythm!" "Somebody get me some vitals!" This could be the sounds of the fast-paced tempo and organized chaos of any emergency room anywhere, but these voices are being heard in a combat zone, where major trauma care can be more complex by the added stress of the environment.

To help alleviate the stress put on the 11 doctors, nurses and medics at the 447th Expeditionary Medical Squadron here, Col. Gregory Biernacki, the 447th EMEDS commander, has implemented training for the other 11 non-clinical members of the staff.

Medical personnel here must deal with improvised explosive devices, vehicle-borne IEDs, mortars, rockets and small arms fire, plus the everyday injuries from the high operations tempo of the flightline, sports and fitness injuries and tripping hazards.

The medical logistics, administration, public health, dental and bioenvironmental engineering personnel recently went through two weeks of training to teach them basic medical care, such as inserting an IV, assessing injuries, the proper use of a gurney and emergency room standard operating procedures.

"The idea is to get everyone up to a level that they can provide trauma care, stabilization and transport," said Colonel Biernacki, who is deployed from 192nd Medical Group, Virginia Air National Guard. "We're trying to get the most bang for our buck with all our people."

The 447th EMEDS sees about 20 emergency room patients a day, and about 10 to 20 patients with other types of appointments, such as tobacco cessation, dental, mental health and immunizations. Although the number of trauma patients varies, as it does in almost any emergency room, the squadron's commander knows it can go from crickets to chaos almost instantly, he said.

"When you get real trauma, it's usually several people coming in," the colonel said. "You're getting two or three people with serious injuries. It just depends, just like any emergency room; you could be doing nothing or you could be doing a lot."

During the training, the physicians provided classroom training for the non-clinical personnel, followed by training scenarios, including simulated unexploded ordinance accident response and two emergency trauma cases.

"The training has been amazing," said Staff Sgt. Jalayne Powers, a bioenvironmental engineer technician deployed from the Air Force Institute of Operational Health at Brooks City-Base, Texas. "I never dreamed I would have the opportunity to put an IV in someone, nor did I think that if given the opportunity I would actually be able to do it. They are great skills to learn on top of just being an overall confidence booster."

The members of 447th EMEDS rotate in and out every two months due to their volunteer status with the Air National Guard, so this training is especially important for continuity and getting new personnel familiar with situations they may see while assigned here, said the colonel.

After a new rotation of medical personnel arrives, they conduct trauma training everyday, except Sunday, for the first two weeks, Colonel Biernacki said.

"The whole idea is, for a lot of people, this is way out of their lane," he said. "For example, I'm a family practitioner, but I haven't had to work in the ER in a long time. So, even though I've done this before, I haven't done it regularly for a long time. You get everybody dusted off and ready to go. We've made our motto here 'preparing for the worst while providing the best.' That's why we work our butts off the first couple of weeks in that training."

The training focuses on the worst case scenario, based on the size of the clinic, its manning and the emergency situation.

"It's the transition from what you do peace time to being in a war zone," Colonel Biernacki said. "We're only 22 strong, so everybody's got to work, especially if we have a mass casualty."

Although he admits that he is not the first to implement some kind of training for non-clinical personnel who work in a clinic in the deployed area of responsibility, Colonel Biernacki is confident that the training plan he has devised is one of the most comprehensive, he said.

"We put all our training on discs and will be passing it out at our annual National Guard meeting," he said. It's kind of a 'how do you stand up an EMEDS; what should your training be?' We're trying to make it a benchmark."

Sergeant Powers said that she has never received any of this type of training before.
"(I've done) self-aid and buddy care, but that was on dummies -- not on real people," she said.

The training also provides a key fringe benefit -- how to work as a newly formed team. With a staff of mostly Air Guard members, the background of each member varies significantly. When a new member arrives, he meets with his section chief. A sort of gap analysis is done to find out how the new member can add to the 447th EMEDS team, said the colonel.

"We ask 'what do you do in the Guard? What do you do in civilian life? What are you supposed to be doing here?' and we find out how to mesh all those things," Colonel Biernacki said. "Once we get the individual up to snuff, how does the team come together?"

Colonel Biernacki and the other physicians and medics are able to answer that rhetorical question during the extensive training weeks. The colonel added that it has little to do with the members being Guardsmen; teamwork is an important aspect anytime a group that hasn't worked together before is brought together.

"Even if we had everybody who worked full-time in an emergency room, I'd still want to see how they function as a team," he said.

"When I was deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq, in 2005, we were just used as manpower to carry litters into the ER from the medevacs, and then we were told to just get out of the way and the medics and docs took over from there," Sergeant Powers said. "Here they're actually training us so we can jump in and help if needed. That really makes me feel even more as part of the team."

The colonel doesn't see the current training program dying off with the next rotation of medical professionals. He plans to make this a long running curriculum.

"I've already talked with my replacement and the person who's replacing him," he said. "We all agree that its important to keep."

"I feel very fortunate to be part of such a great group of people who are so willing to teach us 'non-medics' these skills," Sergeant Powers said. "If something ever comes down, and they need me to jump in and help, which is very likely due to the staff here working with the minimal amount of people, I feel confident I'll be able to jump in and help wherever they need me."