Photo By Brian Godette | Staff Sgt. Cory Jenkins, observer/controller with the Medical Readiness and Training...... read more read more
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FORT MCCOY, Wis. – Two military cultures, divided by a common language and united through medicine, recently found a common training stage.
The U.S. Army Reserve Medical Readiness and Training Command provided an extensive medical training opportunity for military medical professionals, to include the three components of the Army and coalition nations to include the British Army, to train together during Global Medic 15, here, June 6-27.
Global Medic is the premier medical field training event in the Department of Defense, and is the only joint accredited exercise conceived, planned, and executed by the U.S. Army Reserve. During Global Medic service members from multiple DoD branches, and allied nations, train together in a joint force environment, further strengthening their abilities to serve together around the globe.
The real-world, scenario-based training at this year's Global Medic highlighted much of that strengthening at various combat support hospitals set up on several forward operating bases, where Air Force, Navy, Army Reserve and British Army Reserve Soldiers, were integrated to perform the medical tasks.
“We are receiving patients that are being MEDEVAC (medical evacuation) in with serious injuries that they have theoretically sustained in the battlefield,” said Lt. Col. Gregory Lacy, surgeon with the 228th Combat Support Hospital.
As they would while deployed, the medical staff at the 228th received communications on incoming injuries from the field, with an estimated time of arrival via helicopter or ground transportation.
“What we have to do as a hospital is assess and determine who are the most critical patients going through our facility, and then find the most effective way to get them through the triage process and get them resuscitated so that they can get to the operating room for life saving measures,” said Lacy.
The atmosphere on the simulated FOB, as well as the hospital, mirrored deployed locations, with a full force of sustainment Soldiers, gate guards, tents, tactical operation command points, and varying service uniforms conducting their job specific duties.
Though the setup was simulated, the medical Soldiers took their duties seriously.
“We practice sound medicine and we will never compromise patient care, so that means having the best supplies and maintaining a sterile environment,” Lacy said.
“If you don't have a functional operating room in a CSH (combat support hospital) then you really don't have a CSH,” he added.
As patients came in with various trauma injuries surgeons, nurses, and other medical staff fluidly worked together to treat each case.
The ocean blue medical scrubs gave the staff an appearance of uniformity, but with closer attention the differences in uniform and even in accents gave way that some of these Soldiers were part of the British Army.
“It's been great working with the U.S. forces. I think we all bring different skills to the party,” said Staff Sgt. Debbie Foreham, assigned to the 207th Field Hospital, British Army Reserve.
Foreham, who spent 13 years in the British Army as a nurse before joining the British Army Reserve, worked with U.S. forces while deployed in Afghanistan. That interaction led to her appreciation for the cross-training within the medical field.
“I think it's real important that we come over and conduct this training with the U.S. troops. If we iron out our problems during training, we establish those relationships, and it makes it easier to do the jobs we all signed up to do,” Foreham said.
The two military cultures worked in 24-hour operations during Global Medic to enhance those relationships.
“At the end of the day, funny enough, even-though we speak the same language, the accents and dialect were the biggest problems. So we would have different names for the equipment or paperwork, but at the end of the day we had the same goals and reached the same outcome,” Foreham said.
“We know that these medical resources are not infinite, and in the battlefield more of the missions have gone to coalition initiatives. We are sharing these missions with our brethren in the military of various other countries, and the great thing about medicine is it's universal,” Lacy said.
The Medical Readiness and Training Command provided the supplies for Global Medic to ensure the realism during training prepared all the Soldiers for what they could encounter in the field, as well as hands-on experience with medical care they might not see in their civilian careers.
“Many of us in our civilian lives have a garrison type practice where we won't see such a high level of trauma,” Lacy said. “The Medical Readiness Training Command have been doing a very good job in simulating these critical patients with the material they've been coming into our hospital with, and eventually making it into the operating room.”
“For example, we are seeing these patients come in with these body 'cut suits' which contain organs, and are full of fluids, like blood, and we are making surgical incisions. This is as close to the real life patient body as you can possibly get,” Lacy said.
The sentiments of the surgeons were echoed by a surgeon's “best friend” in the operating room, the anesthesiologist.
“Working here at Global Medic is really complimentary to what my experiences are in my civilian role as an anesthesiologist,” said Lt. Col. Craig McFarland, lead anesthesiologist, 228th CSH. “In the civilian world we always have more providers and medical professionals then we have patients, here we need to be a lot more inventive, more flexible, and be more clever how we are using limited resources for the good of the most patients.”
Both the U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers and British Army Reserve Soldiers, brought civilian work assets to the operating table, with many of them working in the medical field full-time, adding to their military capabilities.
“We have to integrate our assets with their assets to better utilize the resources that we have medically so that we can get efficient care for the Soldiers that need our help,” Lacy said.
Global Medic creates the catalyst to enhance those resources and maintain the sound working relationships according to many of the Soldiers involved.
“The real value in Global Medic is to not lose the historical knowledge that we have gained in over 10 years cooperating together, as a joint force, as a coalition force, particularly in Afghanistan,” said Col. Owen Jones, 202nd Field Hospital, British Army, commanding officer.
“What this exercise is doing, is enabling us to come together, share best practices, move forward, and look at how we can best use each other's skills,” Jones said.
To ensure the Soldiers are properly engaging in their duties and best using their skills, observer/controllers with the MRTC, who have practical deployment knowledge in the field, watched and evaluated every scenario closely.
“The O/C's who are evaluating the training have been very good at giving us feedback as to what we are doing good, what we're doing not so well, what we can improve on, and showing some of us who have not deployed, how this is close to real life scenarios,” Lacy said.
The O/Cs had a targeted plan of action to assess the Soldiers, both U.S. and British, in order to provide proper feedback.
“At the beginning of the exercise, the commander identifies the commander training objectives and that's exactly what us, as observer/controllers, look at. We look at what that specific commander wants to look at, so if they want to train on laboratory services or radiology, we make sure we cover down on those sections making sure they hit every individual task and are trained on those task,” said Maj. Amy Reynolds, O/C , HHC, 3rd Medical Training Brigade.
The Global Medic exercise, the premier joint accredited training event for medical professionals, combined the training skills of two nations, working through cultural differences in practice, for the common good of all military.
“We achieve the same objective, even-though we have different people doing it, a lot of our procedures are very similar, but I think it helps if we both understand what the differences are so we can achieve the common goal,” Jones said.
“I think the United Kingdom and the U.S. probably are two nations separated by a common language, as stated by Winston Churchill. But over previous years, we've worked very hard to understand each other and also be mindful of the differences in our culture and our language,” Jones added.
| Date Taken: | 06.22.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 06.23.2015 13:23 |
| Story ID: | 167717 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 143 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Speaking the universal medical language at Global Medic 15, by Brian Godette, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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