FORT BENNING, Ga., (May 4, 2016) -- today's Army, medics must be able to operate in austere conditions as well as within the comfort of hospitals.
To ensure a smooth transition from garrison into a combat environment, the Soldiers of B Company, 14th Combat Support Hospital, in conjunction with Martin Army Community Hospital, performed surgical procedures in a mobile operating room, set up near the hospital.
The mobile operating room is part of the unit's Expeditionary Hospital Package, which includes two beds for advanced trauma life support and damage control resuscitation; four to 10 beds to make up an intensive care unit; and an operating room for both major and minor surgeries, orthopedic and various other procedures. It also features a laboratory for blood work, X-ray capabilities, and a patient administrative section.
Brig. Gen. Eric Wesley, Maneuver Center of Excellence commanding general, and Command Sgt. Major Timothy Metheny, MCoE command sergeant major, visited the mobile operating room April 27 where they received a brief about the Expeditionary Hospital Package capabilities.
"The 14th CSH has been working alongside Martin Army Community Hospital to put together a training event that is essentially our equivalent to a live-fire exercise, where we're performing actual surgical care on patients," explained Maj. Savannah Brookhart, certified registered nurse anesthetist, who works at the 14th CSH. "We have set up a tent that has a pre-op and post-operative section along with an iso-container, which is a hard container that expands into an operating room."
Brookhart said the exercise included providing surgeries for three patients, which included pre-op, post-op and outpatient medication.
"Everything went smoothly, and it included collaboration and planning among multiple groups and lots of think tanks, trying to foresee any difficulties and issues and I feel like we did a good job. It actually went a little smoother than I anticipated."
Master Sgt. Detrick Bush, chief ward master for the mobile facility, said the training is beneficial to the Soldiers who are involved, because there was no role-playing and all of the surgeries and patients were real.
"We had three patients and we had three successful surgeries, they went to pre-op and post op and everything was good. Everything that we practiced and planned for, they executed today," he said.
Capt. Brittany Catalonotti, commander of B Co., 14th CSH, said she was very proud of the way her Soldiers performed during the exercise. She explained the preparation process they underwent before actually participating in the exercise.
"It's incredible. This has been long in coming. We started the military decision-making process at the beginning of January and it's been four months, through the planning process, the logistics and resourcing process, all the way through April 11, which is when we set up for this event," she explained. "The Soldiers spent two months validating for the exercise and what you see today is the product of those months of planning, two weeks of validation and two days of procedures."
She said it's important for the Soldiers to cross train with the hospital staff.
"It's a mutually beneficial exercise that pulls the surgeons from Martin Army, has them work on their core competencies in a dynamic, austere field environment, but what it also does for my Soldiers is that it gives them the ability to train with those surgeons," Catalonotti explained.
She said oftentimes, Soldiers attend training centers, such as the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and they carry their own surgical staff, but they don't actually perform surgeries on real patients.
"This was an incredible opportunity to give them that teamwork that we don't get anywhere else," she said.
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