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Plastic patients, real readiness

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Richard Curry
  • 507th Air Refueling Wing
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Temperatures exceeded 100 degrees outside daily as the largest wildfire in Arizona's history blazed across the state last month. But members of the 507th Medical Squadron faced their own heated challenge while attending a unique trauma training course in Scottsdale, Ariz.

During their June 12-25 annual tour, wing medical technicians faced a series of medical training challenges designed to be intense and as realistic as possible.

The Scottsdale Healthcare Military Training Center is a 7,500 square-foot state-of-the-art facility where military medical personnel receive hands-on training while working on human simulators that bleed and imitate battlefield trauma injuries.

It serves as the hub for Scottsdale Healthcare's Military Partnership, giving students valuable experience during clinical rotations that include the Level 1 Trauma Center at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical Center.

Since the military medical training program began in 2004, more than 1,000 medical personnel from active duty and reserve units across the continental United States, Hawaii and Guam have attended training classes.

"The [Air Force Reserve Command] Surgeon General office coordinated this Training Affiliation Agreement with Scottsdale last year," said Lt. Col. Valerie Olyniec, 507th MDS commander, in an email interview. "This is the first time our reservists have attended this training."

Modeled after the Air Force's Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills, or C-STARS, this program's participants take part in a two-week intensive didactic and clinical rotation coordinated with trauma and intensive care service medical directors.

The course originally was structured for the National Guard and Reserve components to fulfill their readiness skills verification/critical skills requirements while on annual tour. Its success has expanded to include active duty personnel.

The Readiness Skills Sustainment and Training Program partners with the Maricopa Integrated Health System and offers trauma, burn, orthopedics, EMS ride along, wound care/hyperbaric, intensive care unit, pediatric trauma, behavioral health and operating room experiences. Healthcare professionals from all branches of the military may participate.

During their annual tour, the 13-person team, which consisted of one nurse, 11 medical technicians and a surgical technician, experienced both classroom and realistic trauma care training.

The Osborn Medical Center is one of the first civilian hospitals in the U.S. to provide military trauma training. The Military Partnership offers training and experience in trauma, burns, pediatric trauma, behavioral health, EMS ride-alongs, air ambulance flights and more.

Part of the emergency room training involved the use of a special mannequin which allows a medical technician to feel a "pulse" at proper pressure points. The mannequin also moans and exhibits medical symptoms for the technicians to react upon.

Olyniec, a graduate of the active duty Air Force Nurse Transition Program, explained the critical need for Air Force medical professionals using this facility and its training program.

"We can send a variety of medical specialties there such as surgical technicians, nurses, medical technicians and physicians to work in a Level 1 Trauma center and children's hospital so they can get experience as close as possible to combat," she said.

"The [active duty NTP] has also set up shop in this facility because they can no longer get the same training as I did in the active duty medical facilities."

Olyniec also stressed the advantage of sending wing medical technicians.

"Our focus is to send personnel who do not work regularly with trauma to sharpen their skills," she said. "This is a critical time for us to send our personnel as we [approach our Air Expeditionary Force deployment] window.

"We are sending [apprentice-] level medical technicians to help them become upgraded quicker so they will be mobility ready."