Navy Medics Get Prepared for Combat—With Tour of Duty in Chicago

[rangerrebew]

Navy Medics Get Prepared for Combat—With Tour of Duty in Chicago
News
By BelieveMedia1 / March 14, 2018
 

CHICAGO— Konrad Poplawski, a 22-year old Navy hospital corpsman, is about to be deployed as a battlefield medic with the 2nd Marine Division, which has served in deadly battlegrounds in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But first, he is making a pit stop at Cook County’s Stroger Hospital, which the Navy says is among few places here in the U.S. that provide experience treating the types of wounds they will inevitably see on the battlefield.

http://therebelwire.com/navy-medics-get-prepared-for-combat-with-tour-of-duty-in-chicago/

[Sanguine]

I've heard similar stories from other combat medics.  Sad, very sad.

[WingNot]

On the job training ain't what it used to be...

[thackney]

Old news:

Big City ER Medicine Preps Military Docs for Combat
http://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=42249
Dec. 9, 1998

Military medics in Vietnam called it the "golden hour" -- that precious 60-minute countdown when they scrambled to stabilize wounded soldiers -- to save their lives and limbs. Sometimes at field hospitals, the golden hour extended to 12, 18 or 24 hours, the emergency medical teams working without break or sleep to treat hundreds of wounded soldiers.

Since Vietnam, military medics have deployed to other lands and skirmishes, but they haven't experienced the intensity of Vietnam emergency rooms. Even during Desert Storm in 1991, the single largest trauma event yielded an average of only 1.5 trauma surgeries per physician for 24 hours.

The Army, Navy and Air Force surgeons general insist military surgeons must receive more hands-on training in trauma care. They want each surgeon to know what it's like in a trauma center -- and that knowledge, they said, will better prepare military doctors for combat medicine.

Except at a handful of military emergency departments that provide trauma care to their civilian neighbors, military doctors today have little opportunity to train hands-on for combat care. Many Army, Navy and Air Force medics just can't get the training they need in-house. Now, a pilot program promises a new resource -- big, inner-city hospitals. The first to offer such training is Ben Taub General in Houston....