Last week in the field

Last week we spent in the field again, at our glorious TTB (tactical training base) up at Camp Bollis.

Monday: due to some unfortunate scheduling of buses, we had to leave at 2AM Monday morning to head back out to the field. That's....two hours into the day. It was a very very long day as a result. Last week was focused on the tactical levels of care in combat medicine, so we rotated through the three "roles of care" in our platoon and ran through scenarios of taking on casualties. Super fun. On Monday we did "Role 3" which is the CSH, or combat support hospital. I was...the hospital commander. Not scary at all. The platoon did really well and honestly I didn't really have to make any tough decisions. I did get to have basically a one-on-one training session with a previous second in command at a CSH in Iraq, so it was incredible to get to hear her experiences and pick her brain.

I may look aloof, but that's just my calming command presence

Triaging patients

Tuesday: Our platoon did "Role 1", which is the most forward level of medical care aside from buddy care. This is a place very close to the battlefield where patients are stabilized and evacuated to higher levels of care. I was the doctor in this scenario, so had to make a lot of treatment decisions. They also had simulated gunfire that we had to react to and return fire (with rifle blanks). This was a little more stressful as a lot of casualties (members of other platoons who were employed as actors for our scenario) were coming in and fast. We also got to evacuate people via helicopter which was pretty awesome.

Our rides for the week 

Evacuating patients by air!

M16 at work

establishing a security perimeter

Wednesday: Our platoon did "Role 2," which is an intermediate level of care. I got to be on the Forward Surgical Team (FST), so we triaged patients to go or not go to the operating room. The head of the FST was an actual trauma surgeon in my platoon, so it was a great experience in that he led us through what a surgery on each of our patients would actually look like. I was the recorder for the FST, so in addition to providing treatment, I took notes on the patient's condition and what treatments we gave them, writing it on a piece of tape and sticking it to the patients' chest when we evacuated them.

Responsibilities of the FST

Trauma bag for the FST

Earlier in the day, I got to be a patient (multiple facial fractures because of a blast injury) for another platoon's scenario, which was another great way to see how the scenarios play out. It was actually extremely educational because you got to see the patient flow through the various roles of care. The different levels are all being played out simultaneously each day by different platoons, so although I was injured at a Role 2 facility, I got evacuated (by truck, unfortunately, didn't get to ride the helo) to the platoon at another end of the TTB who was acting through the Role 3 care.




Thursday: We packed up and went home on Thursday, but not before we had testing of our "warrior tasks." We had to assemble and disassemble a radio, call in a nine-line medevac order, and clear/assemble/disassemble and do a functions test on our M16. Not gonna lie, I kinda killed it. I was the first one done with the medevac order out of our testing group of about 40 people and the person to disassemble the M16 the fastest. A far cry from a week ago when I was struggling A TON with the steps of rifle disassembly. When we got back to Ft Sam Houston, we got to turn in our M16's. Although I really enjoyed learning to shoot and being a "real soldier," I couldn't be happier to turn that thing in. Having to carry it around at all times (and always at "the low ready" position), was not the most fun part of the last two weeks.

Disassembled M16

Friday: we were back at Ft Sam and we split into our different tracks for the day (e.g. vets vs dentists vs med corps vs HPSP). The HPSP among us did physical training with our company commander, a former special forces guy. Needless to say I was quite sore the next day. However, we only had one more talk to go to, so we had the rest of the day off. The family went to lunch at a brewery, then walked the Riverwalk, and met up with a bunch of other students at San Antonio's Howl at the Moon. Good times were had by all.

Some of the fam!

Battle buddy!

Battle buddies lookin fly

Saturday: we had a charity golf tournament for the Center for the Intrepid. Four person teams, best ball play, 9 holes. We had a great time golfing, driving around in carts and potentially enjoying some beverages. Being out in the sun really wiped us out, so we took it easy last night and just hit up some delicious Mexican food and a movie ("This is the End" -- funny, but strange. Very strange).

Golfing + beers = too aggressive for my blood, so I volunteered to photograph

One more week until I head back to Baltimore! A little conflicted about leaving: I've really enjoyed my time here and am definitely going to miss all the great friends I've made. They keep telling us that the Army is a small small place and that Army medicine is even smaller; we are virtually guaranteed to run into each other again. I hope that's true!