ERBIL AIR BASE, Iraq - Partnered forces of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve continue to share lessons learned and best practices of patient care during a combined training session at Erbil Air Base, February 26, 2025.
During the training, Dr. Luc, a Role One emergency medicine and general practice doctor in the French Army, shared information on blood transfusion protocols with a group of over 35 medical professionals. This training was beneficial for attendees, as providers must be proficient intravenously transferring blood in emergency situations.
"We talked about implementation of blood transfusion protocols,” said Luc. “The basic principles, when to do it, the five types of transfusions, how we store it, which includes our “Golden Hour” box, packaging and making sure it is the right temperature between 2-6 degrees, blood testing, blood filter tubing, the transfusion warming device, main reasons for transfusions and finally focused on dried plasma. This is something we are really proud of because it was designed by the French Army pharmacy and is a safe way to give blood products to coagulation factor patients without any kind of additional risks. Most importantly we talked about emergency blood transfusion especially in austere and remote environments… it is the way that’s used by the UK, US, Norway, France, and Israel."
The lecture taught medical workers, from four allied nations, about procedural combat care techniques that they can easily implement.
"They started by giving certain parameters on when to give someone blood," said Capt. Alexander Rivas, a flight surgeon in the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. “They taught the lesson based on French guidelines and gave some really solid numbers on blood pressures that medics can keep in mind when they are considering giving blood. I will definitely use this training because it is pretty easy to teach my medics to measure the blood pressure and if there is an acute injury and they see certain numbers they will know, it is probably safer than not to give some blood resuscitation."
The medical touchpoint allowed providers the opportunity to compare blood transfusion protocols, which promoted shared understanding across the air base.
"They did a couple things differently than how we were trained to do them," said Pfc. Rickey Burney, a combat medic in the 101st CAB. "As medics we weren't trained to use the dried materials that they use, but I feel like it was good learning about the other countries and how they do things compared to us."
Training events such as this allow medical personnel to build relationships with teammates in a casual environment, as opposed to first introductions during emergency response events. The event coordinator Capt. Dakota Hunt, an enroute critical care and emergency room nurse, was pleased with the result.
“It’s wonderful that we have several partner coalition forces come together,” Hunt said. “When you're out on a mission for example you'll have dust-off that will come pick up [patients] and take them to the Role Three, so it’s nice to get that continuity down and get facetime with the people you are going to be handing off patients to and getting reports from."
Medical teams on the air base hope to continue hosting forums in the future to grow with each other and learn so that they can continue to provide world class medical service to troops.
“The training is a good initiative from the Role One medical team, it is something we have to continue doing to get better together. And we must remember in whatever we are doing in life to give 100%,” Luc said.
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