Category: US Airforce

The IRT program is a unique U.S. DoD initiative that enhances military readiness through hands-on, real-world training while delivering critical services to communities in need.

“This is a great opportunity to not only get services that the community may not be able to afford but they can see what the military provides”, said Cathy Swafford, Rhea County community lead. “You can tell that [the military members] just really want to serve their community and give back.”

Operation Healthy Tennessee brought together service members across the joint force, fostering an environment to strengthen readiness while offering services such as medical, dental, optometry, nutrition counseling and veterinary care, all provided at no cost by credentialed professionals.

“We are providing a great level of service,” stated Maj. Ralph Garcia, Bledsoe County officer in charge. “It’s a collaborative joint effort to bring resources to underserved communities.”

The mission proved to be a powerful example of the program’s impact, making a strong contribution towards the IRT Program.

In just 10 days, two medical clinic locations served 2,000 patients and completed more than 15,000 medical, dental and optometry procedures. The veterinary team treated 677 pets, delivering services valued at $314,465. A specialized optometry team, assigned to the mission as part of a Naval Ophthalmic Readiness Activity, built and distributed more than 770 pairs of glasses for those in need.

The fair market value of all medical and veterinary services provided is totaled at $1.9 million.

“Training is such an important part of an IRT,” said Lt. Danielle Lloyd, Operation Healthy Tennessee officer in charge. “Although we are providing much needed medical care to this community, at the same time, we are training to make sure we are staying mission ready.”

The operation logged more than 25,000 training hours across categories including readiness, certification, clinic skills, ad-hoc tasks and hands-on training.

IRT missions, like Operation Healthy Tennessee, often represent a once-in-a-career opportunity, and participants are encouraged to fully embrace the collaborative environment, network with fellow service members and connect with the public to which we are caring for to maximize the experience.

“Now that we’ve had our last day of clinical care and we’re able to see the final numbers, it’s such a good feeling to see that we’ve helped so many community members,” Lloyd said. “There’s no better feeling than seeing someone who desperately needed care and being able to provide it at no cost.”

The training consisted of 16 stations and substations that ranged from spinal immobilization to infection control to post-mortem protocol, all scenarios that are critically important for a medic to know but unlikely to experience in a clinical setting such as the clinic at Holloman Air Force Base.

“Gone are the days when a medic would only be expected to perform duties within their specific specialty – our medics need to be versatile and better equipped to provide speedy and effective support to the warfighter,” said U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Jason Estrada, 49th MDG senior enlisted leader. “That versatile mindset is what our medical group education and training team has used to shape our Medic-X and other hands-on training.”

The Air Force is one of the most lethal parts of the Department of Defense, and the flipside of lethality is the medical skill needed to keep the warfighters in the fight downrange. This more hands-on approach to training was brought about after an education and training member went through the intense two-week Tactical Combat Casualty Care Tier 3 course and realized how important it would be to bring lessons learned to the entire medical group.

“We’re focusing on operating in an austere environment where it’s not going to be calm, it’s not going to be like day-to-day clinic operations,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Natasha Lindbloom, 49th MDG education and training flight commander. “You could tell somebody to recite the alphabet, but if it’s stressful, they’re going to mess it up. We want our people to be able to do this until they can perform these simple tasks under pressure.”

Although we cannot mirror a battlefield environment, we can put our medics in situations where critical thinking and a sense of urgency fuels their training to ‘kick in.’Chief Master Sgt. Jason Estrada, 49th MDG senior enlisted leader

Coupled with the chance to exercise underutilized but combat-effective skills, the exercise served to underscore the importance of medics who are fit to fight and capable of doing what’s needed when it’s needed in a stressful and possibly deadly environment. A low-crawl obstacle course was put together using furniture and gear inside the clinic, streamlining the flow of training and simulating a more realistic urban environment.

“Although we cannot mirror a battlefield environment, we can put our medics in situations where critical thinking and a sense of urgency fuels their training to ‘kick in,’” Estrada said. “Since so few of our current medics possess the real-world experience, it’s our training team that brings these scenarios to life with realism and pressure-induced decision making, which results in the desired sets & reps our teams need to build muscle memory.

Constant Improvement

Medic-X training exercises are not a new concept for medical personnel; in fact, Medic-X was rolled out across the enterprise two years ago and has provided quarterly training objectives to all Defense Health Agency members. The ever-changing global environment and nature of future warfare were other driving factors in the 49th MDG collectively getting ahead of the curve and practicing these critical wartime skills on top of staying adept at their daily clinical duties.

“I’m hoping this gives people the mindset of ‘Hey, I know I’m in this job right now and I’m comfortable, but I’m not always going to be comfortable if we’re put in these situations in real life,’” said U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Claire Pruitt, 49th MDG education and training program manager.

All Airmen take TCCC Tier-1 training that covers the basics of what was formerly known as self-aid and buddy care, while all medics are required to take Tier-2 training to gain more expertise in the ability to treat wounds sustained in combat. Tier-3 training is optional but available for all medics and provides a realistic, grueling experience of austere field conditions and the physical limits that medics can be pushed to in wartime.

“There’s going to be a bit of a shock factor for people working in a clinic, where even though we’re incredibly busy, a lot of it is just administrative work instead of intense, hands-on medical practice,” Pruitt said. “I’m trying to integrate some of the things that they did with us in a physical aspect at the Tier 3 training so that these Airmen have more experience and understand that if they have to do this in real life tomorrow, it’s not going to be easy. They’ll have to think about getting the patient out of the combat zone, treating their wounds, stopping the bleeding, loading them onto a helicopter, etc.”

The success of the first iteration of integrated field work with Medic-X has laid the groundwork for an ever-improving series of exercises to better prepare Team Holloman’s medics for unpredictable and challenging fights of future conflict.

“Today’s potential adversaries are better equipped and more prepared than any potential foe has ever been,” Estrada said. “For that reason, every uniform-wearing member of our military needs to understand that he/she is one bad day, one ill-guided decision, one perceived threatful action away from finding themselves, in support of our country, inside a combat environment where the old rules may not apply.”