Total Force Airmen ready for deployed medical support

Published July 2, 2012
By 1st Lt. Kathleen Eisenbrey and Airman 1st Class Tiffanie Gaines
15th Medical Group

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- Sixty-seven Pacific Air Forces Airmen and Air National Guardsmen sharpened their warfighter medical support capabilities at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) in Anchorage, Alaska, May 7-13.

The medical personnel concluded Expeditionary Medical Support training, a mandatory pre-deployment requirement, where Airmen are taught readiness skills expected of them while deployed to a "bare base" environment, to include arriving on site and building a base camp and a field hospitals while maintaining, improving and enhancing medical proficiencies and combat capabilities.

"The Alaska EMEDS course, also known as the Mobile EMEDS course, focuses on issues prominent in the Pacific theater such as contingency response operations for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief involving potentially nearly two billion people who reside in over forty countries," said Col. (Dr.) Mark Holland, PACAF deputy surgeon general. "The ability to offer the Expeditionary Medical Services course within the PACAF region is a benefit for Airmen stationed in the Pacific as they are geographically separated across over fifty percent of the world's surface area,"

According to Holland, the location is ideal for Pacific Air Forces, as it reduces travel costs and enables a greater number of PACAF Airmen to be trained in a single event, quickly raising unit training percentages and readiness.

Typically held at Brooks City Base, Texas, students from wings within 5th, 11th, and 13th Air Forces, along with students and instructors from Texas and Michigan Air National Guard units honed their expeditionary medical skills while facing the Alaskan climate.

"EMEDS provides a unique opportunity for Guardsmen and their active duty counterparts to demonstrate medical proficiency in a collaborative manner ... it was one of the best training experiences I've had in my military career," said Col. (Dr.) Brad Eisenbrey, State Command Surgeon of the Michigan Air National Guard.

Airmen spent nine hours constructing an EMEDS+10 or field hospital consisting of six dome-shaped shelter tents, approximately nine feet in height and 15-by-30 feet wide, linked by a central hallway. The hospital consisted of an emergency room, an intensive care unit, an operating room, surgical ward, dental treatment room, laboratory and pharmacy.

The EMEDS +10 was part of an 'operational capability package,' a PACAF concept that includes rapidly establishing and deploying an EMEDS package and a contingency response group in response to humanitarian and disaster relief operations. Built in 1999 to replace an outdated, cumbersome air-transportable hospital, the EMEDS +10 facility provides medical personnel the capability to manage ten surgical injuries in addition to 20 non-surgical injuries within a 24-hour period.

According to Col. Robin Hunt, 673rd In-Patient Treatment Squadron commander at JBER, the benefits of training to appropriately respond to disaster scenarios is invaluable.

"This unique type of training provides Airmen the ability to train like we're fighting in real-time scenarios," said Hunt. "All scenarios tested how we would care for patients when deployed in support of [contingency] and wartime operations."

Airmen who participated in the training mentioned the importance of learning from personal experiences in an environment that fosters teamwork.

"Intermingling with our fellow team members was a valuable experience," said Tech Sgt. Vanessa Cifuentes, a Bioenvironmental Engineering craftsman stationed at JBER. "Anytime you blend various bases, units and services ... it can be exceptional training."

"The Expeditionary Medical Support course is, in my opinion, an essential training for the development of our medical force," said Tech Sgt. Eric Patterson, a Public Health journeyman stationed at Andersen AFB, Guam. "It not only equips us for a deployment [or] humanitarian situation in our own career fields, but it enlightens us to what other medical career fields do. These skills directly translate into all medical services working together as a cohesive team in an austere environment."