332D AIR EXPEDITIONARY WING -- The 332d Expeditionary Medical Group has fully embraced the Multi-capable Airman concept, enabling their Airmen to go above and beyond their duties to support medical operations here.
Master Sgt. Justin Sims, EMDG bioenvironmental engineering craftsman, explained how the Preventative and Aerospace Medicine team is a prime example of the MCA concept in full effect.
“We are a small team that is responsible for a large population,” Sims said. “So rather than there being a Public Health team and a separate Bioenvironmental Engineering team, we combined our forces here in a deployed expeditionary medical environment to form the Preventative and Aerospace Medicine team, PAM for short.”
Bioenvironmental engineering specialists in the Air Force are tasked with reducing health hazards for Air Force personnel and their work environments. This can mean detecting radioactive materials, checking for pollutants in drinking water, and ensuring safe industrial hygiene conditions.
Public Health oversees the areas of disease prevention and outbreaks, educating Air Force personnel on sanitary standards, investigating hazardous material situations, and providing medical intelligence briefings about preventive medicine both pre-and post-deployment.
In tandem, the PAM team supports the routine task to gather water, air, and bacterial samples from approximately 50 different sites ensuring there is no presence of bacteria in the water or ice machines and the air is safe for work conditions. By utilizing the MCA concept, this process is performed at a much quicker rate.
“In a deployed location we typically work with fewer team members,” Capt. M. Husein Dharas, 332d EMDG bioenvironmental engineering officer in charge said. “If we are doing our job correctly, then we are preventing potential disease outbreaks and helping to keep the base population safe.”
The combined efforts of the 332d EMDG Public Health and Bioenvironmental Engineering teams increase their capabilities and further highlight the importance of the MCA concept within the 332d Air Expeditionary Wing.