Future military doctors hone field medicine skills

  • Published
  • By Donna Miles
  • American Forces Press Service
CAMP BULLIS, Texas (AFPN) --  A fictitious Middle Eastern country, Pandakar, was facing internal unrest and taking casualties. Fourth-year medical students at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., were called in to treat the patients.

Operation Bushmaster, a 72-hour exercise designed to expose future military doctors to the rigors of field medicine in a combat environment, was under way here.

As they treated "patients" -- actually Soldiers from nearby Fort Sam Houston -- the medical students from the Army, Navy and Air Force applied the clinical training they received, as well as the tactical skills they would need to survive on the battlefield.

"They have to defend themselves while they take care of the casualties," said Army Maj. Steve Currier, director for military contingency medicine at the university.

That requires skills not taught in traditional medical schools, he said, including land navigation, nuclear-biological-chemical decontamination and weapons skills, as well as the ability to live and operate in the field.

Although field skills are an integral part of Operation Bushmaster, Major Currier stressed that it is a practical exercise in tactical combat-casualty care, not in infantry tactics.

"We're teaching students to care for patients from the point of injury to the first surgical capability," he said.

Increased emphasis on treating patients as quickly and far forward as possible presents challenges traditional medical students are not likely to encounter -- from treating patients while under fire to working with far less equipment than they would find in fixed medical facilities.

"The battlefield is not the same as home," Major Currier said. "Resources are limited, evacuation times are prolonged and there are specific threats. It's a challenging environment."

For about half the students, the exercise offered a return to principles they learned during previous service in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, but with a new focus.

2nd Lt. Valerie O'Brien said the exercise, and her entire course of studies at the university, is preparing her for the challenges she will face practicing medicine in a joint environment.

"This allows us to be more familiar with the assets the other services have and what they do," she said. "It's exposure we just wouldn't be able to get in a different environment."

After completing their studies at the university, graduates accept a seven-year military service obligation.

"But the type of person you have here doesn't think of it as an obligation," said Army 2nd Lt. Tom Dowd, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy now preparing for a job in orthopedics at Brooke Army Medical Center at Ft. Sam Houston. "This is what we want to do. Our greatest aspiration is to provide care to the servicemembers fighting the global war on terror."

"This is our chance to serve that population that gives so much for our country," said Lieutenant O'Brien, a former enlisted Soldier whose father also retired from the Army.

"There's a real sense of pride here," she said. "We're here because we believe in what we're doing, and that's how we view our training and our job."