From Navy Medicine Support Command Public Affairs:
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (NNS) -- Nearly 200 active-duty and Reserve Sailors scheduled to deploy to the world's busiest military trauma hospital began the second iteration of a training program July 30 at the Naval Expeditionary Medical Training Institute (NEMTI) in Camp Pendleton, Calif.
The training evolution, designed to integrate and develop them as a medical team, marks only the second time the entire staff of enlisted and commissioned medical professionals and support personnel assigned to a forward-deployed medical facility began pre-deployment training together.
This is an effort NEMTI Officer-In-Charge Capt. Thomas Sawyer, said supports the current role of U.S. Navy healthcare professionals in contingency operations around the world.
"Navy Medicine has historically been capable of operating in any environment," he said. "A pillar of our training - team training with service members with whom they'll rely on heavily during the deployment - is exercised using high-fidelity simulation, which provides enhanced current skills to be able to do what they do best - save lives."
The NEMTI-sponsored Kandahar Role-3 Hospital course is a two-week program designed to foster teamwork, and build and hone medical skills specific to what U.S. military medical professionals might expect while on deployment to the Role 3 Hospital at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan. The course was initially offered in January 2012 and met with resounding success. Service members previously deploying in support of operations in Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq were either sent individually or in small groups, replacing other personnel with similar specialties or Navy Enlisted Classifications (NECs) on a "one-for-one" basis.
U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Navy Medicine Support Command and the operational training leadership, however, recognized the need for additional requirements in the training pipeline, suggesting a course that would allow deploying personnel the opportunity to train together from the inception, fostering a sense of teamwork and unity imperative for the continued success medical personnel have affected in some of the most dangerous areas in the world.
"It is gratifying to watch personnel from all skill levels come together as a team," Sawyer said. "We are training both Role 2 and Role 3 deployers during this course. They arrived as individuals and will depart as medical teams ready to perform their specific mission."
The term "role" describes the tiers in which medical support is organized, with Role 3 describing the capabilities of a theater-level hospital.
The course, designed by NEMTI, was approved by the US Fleet Forces Command, CENTCOM and the former Navy Medicine Support Command in response to deployment requirements and feedback received from previously deployed personnel including past and current commanding officers of the North American Treaty Organization-run Role 3 Kandahar Medical Facility. The course includes a variety of medical training courses.
The curriculum for this course includes JTTS Clinical Practice Guidelines and incorporates concepts of pre-deployment trauma requirements such as tactical combat casualty care. Additional subjects include ethics, psychiatric disorders, Army working dogs and unexploded ordinance.
Kandahar Role 3 students participate in a lecture/question and answer forum with members from the NMCSD Wounded Warrior Battalion, and the course culminates with a mass casualty drill.
"It is a privilege to serve the Marines," Sawyer said. "The Wounded Warriors provide a final crescendo that brings the trauma instruction and team building all together."
Service members completing the Kandahar Role-3 Hospital course will next complete U.S. Central Command military requirements aboard training sites such as Fort Dix, N.J., and Fort Jackson, S.C.
NEMTI, the premier U.S. Navy training facility for expeditionary medicine, reports to the Navy Medicine Operational Training Center (NMOTC) in Pensacola, Fla., and the Medical Education and Training Command in San Antonio, Texas.
NEMTI and NMOTC and are part of the Navy Medicine team, a global health care network of 63,000 Navy medical personnel around the world who provide high-quality health care to the operational forces and more than one million eligible beneficiaries. Navy Medicine personnel deploy with Sailors and Marines worldwide, providing critical mission support aboard ship, in the air, under the sea and on the battlefield.
