Advanced trauma life support training returns to Wilford Hall

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Kimberly Spencer
  • 59th Medical Wing Public Affairs
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) --  Trauma training designed to prepare physicians for war has returned to the 59th Medical Wing at Wilford Hall Medical Center for the first time since 2001.

The Advanced Trauma Life Support, or ATLS, course, held May 4 and 5, is the standard on which all immediate trauma care is based, according to course officials.

“As an American College of Surgeons verified Level I trauma center, it is incumbent upon us to have critical personnel such as emergency medical physicians and surgeons ATLS certified and to be an ATLS teaching center,” said Lt. Col. Don Jenkins, 59th General Surgery Flight commander and the new 59th MDW ATLS course director.

The course provides readiness skills verification training for deploying medical personnel as well as continuing medical training required for all physicians.

“Our ATLS program got interrupted in 2001 by operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom,” Colonel Jenkins said. “We no longer had enough certified individuals in (the continental United States) at one time to oversee and teach the course. It was very difficult for physicians and surgeons to have to find an ATLS course prior to deploying.”

The training teaches immediate life-saving care for trauma victims in a standardized fashion based on “tried and true” methods from the American College of Surgeons, Colonel Jenkins said.

Along with classroom instruction, students take part in discussions, demonstrations and hands-on skill stations. Training blocks include initial assessment, airway and ventilation management, triage scenarios, spine and spinal cord traumas, shock and abdominal trauma.

A variety of medical personnel attended the course, including participants from the Netherlands and Chile. Several members of the wing participated as part of their ATLS instructor re-certification and will teach future courses held here.

Students from San Antonio's Madison High School health promotions class served as the moulaged “patients,” enacting scenarios ranging from car and motorcycle accidents, to stabbing and gunshot incidents.

“The completion of the course allows the medical wing to once again become self-sufficient to provide ATLS courses in the future,” Colonel Jenkins said.