Photo By Staff Sgt. Azaria Loyd | Lt. Col. Gregory Riddle, left, 23d Aerospace Medical Squadron flight surgeon, and...... read more read more
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The 23d Medical Group partnered with the 15th Air Support Operations Squadron to expedite the medical clearance process for Airmen at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
One 23d MDG flight surgeon and medical technician performed flight physicals for 15th ASOS tactical air control party specialists, enabling the unit to expedite training and reduce traveling expenses.
“Without a doubt, this impacts the mission pretty heavily,” said Lt. Col. Riddle Gregory, 23d AMDS flight surgeon and sport medicine physician. “[This partnership] will allow 80 TACPs in the 15th ASOS to continue performing ground-based controlling duty in garrison and while deployed.”
The 93d Air Ground Operations Wing TACPs are stationed at U.S. Army installations, which can make the currency requirement to have a flight physical exam every 12 to 15 months difficult.
“Since they're on an Army base, they would have to come TDY here in order to remain on ground-based controlling duty,” Riddle said. “[Instead, a] medical technician and I performed flight physical exams for the 15th ASOS Airmen [at their home station].”
According to Riddle this new initiative saved the 15th ASOS approximately $24k in travel costs and more than 900 hours.
“It allows the members to be assessed…health-wise,” said Lt. Col Michael Primiano, 15th ASOS commander. “Doctors get them fully mission qualified so that they can go drop bombs and be able to deploy in support of our [combatant commanders] efforts.”
Riddle and his team received dual credentials to perform flight physicals at Fort Stewart, saving members of 15th ASOS a trip to Moody.
“So, you're talking 80 individuals, six hours transit time, and a complete loss of at least one training day here,” Primiano said. “A training day could be spent on the range, controlling aircraft, dropping bombs or strafing. It could be a training day for other lethality training, weapons and tactics, or readiness briefs. So, having [medics] come [to Fort Stewart] obviously saves an entire day.”
Due to TACPs having to travel to various locations to stay current in their training, this partnership not only gave the 15th ASOS members more time to train, but it allotted more time to spend with their families.
“The biggest impact that comes from this is time our individuals have with their families,” said Master Sgt. Kenneth Winters, 18th ASOS first sergeant. “Everything we have to do takes longer and takes more time away from families to include weekend time, not just regular duty hours. [We] often have a lot of our folks working outside of their regular duty hours to accomplish things that if [medics] were closer, they could do within a regular scheduled time.”
The 23d MDG staff are scheduled to travel to Fort Stewart every quarter to continue this initiative.
Partnerships between Air Force units and TACP squadrons across the country ensure the geographically separated units can complete their mission.
“What I'm getting at is every day counts,” Primiano said. “Because the 23d Medical Group enabled our folks to spend at least one more night at home to tuck their kids into bed prior to deployment and that's tough to quantify on the emotional side.”
| Date Taken: | 03.05.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 03.06.2020 16:18 |
| Story ID: | 364672 |
| Location: | MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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