Medical group: Ready for anything

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Jessica H. Smith
  • 366th Fighter Wing/Public Affairs
MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho. (Nov. 7, 2014.) --  The 366th Medical Group participated in the Capstone Training Event held here from Nov. 3-7, 2014.

A total of 45 different Air Force career fields participated in the week long training event.

"Individuals were divided into clinical and non-clinical specialty groups to focus resources on the specific training needs of the various medical specialties," said 2nd Lt. Bethany Pattee, 366th Medical Support Squadron medical readiness flight commander.

In the past, general training was provided to all medical personnel but exercise training was focused on a select few. Training efforts are now being extended to all MDG personnel; in order to prepare all Gunfighter medics are ready for any situation.

"It's important for the MDG to be involved in these training events," said Pattee, "we're an essential part of the Wing's readiness posture."

The MDG involvement during the Capstone training event consisted of many types of scenarios explained Pattee. The MDG covered things such as alarms and deployed medical facility processes.

The clinical group covered things like shock, head injuries, burns and resuscitation. The non-clinical Air Force specialty codes covered scenarios such as litter carries, ambulance loading and weapons familiarization.

"In the afternoons, we combined clinical and non-clinical into smaller teams to compete in a 6-stage obstacle course," explained Pattee. "These teams were tracked for time and safety."

The obstacle course consisted of tasks such as treating and litter-loading a trauma patient, high wall and low crawl litter carry obstacles, firearm clearing and loading the patient into the ambulance.

"Practicing and enhancing these skills provides the clinical and non-clinical members with exposure to scenarios outside of their normal peacetime operations," said Pattee. "It prepares them for deployed medical facility operations as well as in-garrison contingency response."

Pattee went on to explain that the MDG employs a multitier approach to readiness training to ensure that everyone is able to meet the readiness requirements, whether it's something they are tasked with or something outside their primary skillset.

"It's essential for our medics to have hands-on experience in dealing with the medical requirements of the deployed mission, "said Pattee. "We want to give an opportunity for our personnel to get out from doing computer-based training and accomplish hands-on tasks and skills."

The MDG also had a patient retrieval team practice their litter loading and unloading procedures for a Blackhawk helicopter by participating in a simulated medical evacuation from the range to the MDG landing zone Nov. 6, 2014.

Pattee said, in the future the MDG will continue to enforce the recent training during their monthly training opportunities as well as testing their capabilities during the projected integration Capstone training event.

"Our primary mission is to provide 'ready Gunfighters' to execute the mission, both medics and non-medic through our deployed medical missions," said Pattee.