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Fifty-one members of the 86th Medical Group, 31st Medical Group from Aviano Air Base, Italy, and U.S. Air Forces in Europe International Health Services participated in a five-day long expeditionary medical support exercise Nov. 28 through Dec. 2 on Ramstein.
An EMEDS exercise, completed every two years, allows medical support personnel to practice providing medical care on short notice to an entire population-at-risk of up to 2,000.
“We can get an EMEDS anywhere in the world in 18 hours or less,” said Capt. Jason Estes, Medical Readiness Flight commander. “Once on the ground, our medics can be mission ready for primary care, nursing care, laboratory services, dental care, X-ray, public health, bioenvironmental engineering, medical logistics and surgical operations in fewer than 72 hours.
“Because EMEDS is a modular capability, we can scale it up or down depending on the mission and the population at risk,” he continued. “That alone makes EMEDS an outstanding platform for global medical support.”
The exercise consisted of formal training and realistic scenarios for the Airmen to test their knowledge with the medical field equipment.
“Although the equipment does the same job, the field versions of our medical tools are modified,” said Capt. Ronsetta Hutchison, 86th MDS operating room nurse. “It’s important to make yourself comfortable with medical equipment you don’t use on a regular basis.”
Using the equipment in the scenarios allowed for medical staff to work in a hands-on environment with face-to-face patient interaction.
“I had the exciting opportunity to act as a patient and process through the system,” Estes said. “From the emergency room, to the operating room for surgery, to the ward for recovery, and on to be aeromedically evacuated to more definitive care. I got the chance to thoroughly understand the patient experience and process. It was awesome.”
Since the EMEDS exercise was also heavily based on training, having the location here allowed for the Air Force to save the money it would normally cost to send the personnel back to the states.
“Having a mobile training cadre travel to Ramstein to conduct this training eliminated the requirement to send all of these personnel to other locations for the training, which saved the Air Force more than $153,000,” Estes said.
But saving money isn’t the main goal of the EMEDS exercise. The exercise is designed to provide a realistic taste of performing deployed care.
“I love field training like this,” Hutchison said. “To me, it truly feels like a deployed environment. That alone is priceless for members who haven’t deployed yet. They are getting the training and will know exactly what to expect once downrange.”
