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JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, March 14, 2025 – Brooke Army Medical Center recently offered a two-day course for military medical personnel to prepare them to provide medical support during humanitarian health emergencies.
The Military Medical Humanitarian Assistance Course focuses on understanding the unique health challenges military medical personnel may face in austere environments such as diarrhea and dehydration, malnutrition, epidemic measles, malaria, and respiratory infections. The course participants learn to recognize and manage conditions consistently associated with high mortality among the most vulnerable populations, primarily children.
“This course helps students understand the resources available – and not available – to them in resource-limited settings,” explained Army Lt. Col. (Dr.) Megan Donahue, assistant professor of pediatrics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. “They learn about major causes of morbidity and mortality in humanitarian emergencies and how best to prevent and treat these. They also learn the capabilities and limitations of military medical providers in humanitarian emergency settings.”
In addition to being the assistant professor of pediatrics at USUHS, Donahue is also the chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at BAMC.
The MMHAC course was created by the Department of Pediatrics at USUHS in 1998. It was developed by a multidisciplinary faculty assembled from individuals with experience in humanitarian operations and expertise in infectious diseases, management of dehydration, malnutrition, preventive medicine and health education.
“Over the past 25 years, the course has undergone updates and revisions to stay up-to-date and enhance education for military medical professionals to provide appropriate care for civilian populations in austere locations,” Donahue said.
Course scenarios focus on the role that U.S. military medical assets would likely play as early responders to a humanitarian emergency with limited medical resources. The scenarios and cases are all derived from real operational experiences of instructors, allowing students to problem solve and face ethical dilemmas in triage while developing creative logistical and clinical solutions.
Air Force Capt. Kevin Puri, an intern physician currently completing his transitional year internship at BAMC and Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center through the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium, took the course to prepare for his next assignment.
“I pursued this course to enhance my operational readiness as a military physician before stepping into my role as the flight surgeon for the 36th Fighter Squadron (at Osan Air Force Base, South Korea),” Puri said. “Knowing I will be stationed overseas in the Pacific Command, I recognized the importance of being equipped to respond effectively in humanitarian assistance missions and natural disaster relief efforts.”
“The opportunity to strengthen my knowledge in managing large-scale medical crises and operating in austere environments was something I knew I could not pass up,” he added. “Ultimately, I want to be a physician capable of answering the call, whether that is providing humanitarian aid after a typhoon, stabilizing casualties in remote locations, or serving alongside our fighter squadron in high-tempo operational environments.”
Puri said he appreciated the chance to learn from a diverse panel of specialists across fields like general pediatrics, infectious diseases, and genetics, because they each brought a wealth of knowledge in responding to complex humanitarian emergencies.
“The hands-on approach of working through real-world disaster response scenarios, alongside fellow military physicians, gave me practical tools to navigate the unpredictability and chaos inherent in humanitarian missions,” he said. “Additionally, the collaborative nature of the course, which emphasized adapting medical decision-making amidst the fog and friction of natural disasters, broadened my perspective on how to provide care in resource-limited and high-stakes environments. It was both humbling and empowering.”
Army Capt. Madeline Donnelly, also a transitional year intern, will be attending the Internal Medicine Residency Program at BAMC next year.
“I took the MMHAC course because my main motivator for pursuing a career in the military was to use the military as a vehicle for providing humanitarian aid,” Donnelly said. “I enrolled in ROTC in college and initially planned to request a position in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but I found a passion in community service that I couldn’t satisfy outside of a medical career. I decided to follow in the footsteps of my mother and become a physician.”
Donnelly said her mother’s family emigrated from Argentina in the 1970s. They came to the United States because of the civil unrest and violence happening in their country.
“My mother has dedicated a part of her career to outreach and improving medical literacy in the Latino community,” Donnelly said. “I hope to use the skills learned in the MMHAC course on future deployments or humanitarian aid missions in Central and South America.”
The target audience for the MMHAC is military primary care providers expected to encounter civilian populations through Global Health Engagement activities. This includes general medical officers, family practitioners, pediatricians, emergency medicine providers, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and trainees entering these fields.
“At BAMC, we have also included students who will participate in the healthcare team, including medics, nurses, optometrists, veterinarians, and others,” Donahue said.
Both Puri and Donnelly agree that the course will help them in their future military medical careers.
“I now feel significantly better equipped to provide medical leadership under uncertain and challenging conditions,” Puri said. “I now have a deeper understanding of the unique medical challenges that arise during natural disasters or complex emergencies, ensuring I am ready to step up when my skills are needed most.”
“I’m incredibly grateful to SAUSHEC for the opportunity to complete this course,” he added. “The knowledge and skills I have gained will directly enhance my readiness as a military physician, especially as I transition to serving overseas in the Pacific Command.”
“The discussions in the MMHAC classes have also made me more conscientious about medical waste here in the United States,” Donnelly said. “Since the course, I’ve scrutinized my use of resources like antibiotics and IV fluids that I’ve previously taken for granted. This course has impacted my current, and hopefully future, practice. MMHAC should become an integral part of all military residency curriculums.”
The MMHAC is offered at several military installations, however the next course at BAMC will be held June 3-4, 2025. For more information about this course, visit https://medschool.usuhs.edu/ped/education/mmhac.
| Date Taken: | 03.14.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.14.2025 11:58 |
| Story ID: | 492877 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO - FORT SAM HOUSTON, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 172 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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