LEBANON, Oregon – Western University of Health Sciences will host members of the 396th Combat Support Hospital, United States Army Reserve on Saturday, Jan. 6, 2018 for joint military medical readiness training.
Medical students from the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific-Northwest Military Medicine Student Association will work alongside approximately 30 military combat medics and Army nurses for training in the following skills:
• Peripheral IV insertion
• Interosseous line placement
• Anatomical locations and access to major blood vessels
• Bleeding control measures, especially use of tourniquets
• Chest tube placement
• Field evacuation of pneumothorax
• Airway management
• Crycothyroidotomy
• Field ultrasound techniques such as FAST/ e-FAST scans
• Cardiac monitoring and application of BLS/ ACLS skills
• Situational awareness and mental readiness
The training program teaches emergency medical skills and mental preparedness to medics and future physicians. U.S. Army emergency department physicians and nurses will be on site to help train the soldiers and students.
“These medics will be sent to places where their skills and decision-making processes may mean life or death to soldiers in the field,” said Derrick Sorweide, DO, FACOFP, assistant professor of family medicine for WesternU COMP-Northwest. Sorweide is a major in the U.S. Army Reserve. “By training them in as real as possible situations, and getting them access to fellow soldiers and health care workers who have seen trauma situations, we will be teaching medics coping skills and building camaraderie. The training will make them ‘cooler under fire,’ and as such, better able to perform the tasks required for the situation.
“Along those same lines, our military medical students are going to become military officers who someday will command these medics. Caring for patients is a noble and difficult task, but these men and women have also signed up to lead troops, possibly in battlefield situations,” Sorweide said. “They require proper training and inside knowledge to fully understand the responsibility they face.”
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Western University of Health Sciences (www.westernu.edu), located in Pomona, Calif. and Lebanon, Ore., is an independent nonprofit health professions university, conferring degrees in biomedical sciences, dental medicine, health sciences, medical sciences, nursing, optometry, osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant studies, podiatric medicine and veterinary medicine. WesternU is home to the Patient Care Center, where the best in collaborative health care services is offered. The Chronicle of Higher Education named WesternU a Great College to Work For in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
