Care in peace and war -- Froedtert program gives National Guard medics trauma training

Sunday, July 22, 2007 2:15 AM CDT

HED: Care in peace and war

DROPHED: Program brings National Guard medics in for trauma training

By David Steinkraus

Journal Times

Chris Hammond found himself back in an emergency room on July 14.

This time the registered nurse was in one of his other roles, and that gave this particular Saturday a particular importance. He was the first person to go through a training program at Froedtert Hospital to prepare for war.

It's part of his job as a National Guard major for the 128th Air Refueling Wing based at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee. Hammond, who is 45 and lives in Caledonia, is part of the wing's medical unit, and the need it had was for more hands-on training.

The wing's medics may work in civilian life as school teachers, or flight attendants, or in other jobs that don't require a medical background, said Dr. James Ninomiya, 55, an orthopedic surgeon at Froedtert and an associate professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is also an Air National Guard colonel and the flight surgeon for the 128th, and it was he who proposed weekend emergency room training for the wing's medical people.

The wing's doctors, too, are not necessarily trauma specialists and so don't have those skills always honed, Ninomiya said. "I mean, you can train all you want on plastic dummies and read all you want, but it's a whole different scenario than seeing a multiply injured individual, trauma patient, firsthand."

Sharper skills

"It's really trying to fulfill critical training that they really had a very difficult time achieving otherwise," Ninomiya said. "So for example, a med tech might be required to learn how to start IVs, a very simple task - but I mean just practically speaking it's hard to do that on a Saturday drill. But here at Froedtert they have obviously many, many opportunities to do that and become proficient."

Hammond has been in emergency rooms before during his career (he just started as the director of nursing for Brightstar Health Care in Racine), and he said it's necessary for people to have that experience of dealing with injured people, large volumes of injured people, they may see in war, and what better place to prepare than in the emergency room of a large trauma center?

Nor is it only American troops whom American medical people treat, said Ninomiya. They care for injured Iraqi civilians, whose numbers are far greater than those of injured Americans, and even injured insurgents fighting the Iraqi government and U.S. forces.

Familiar ground

It wasn't a shock to do patient care again on that Saturday, Hammond said. He was with an experienced nurse who let him observe and lend a hand when he felt comfortable. By the end of the night he was starting IVs, giving injections, and assessing patients; when you've had enough training, even though you haven't practiced for a while, he said, you recover your skill quickly.

Although some members of the 128th have been called overseas, training for war is only part of the National Guard's job, Ninomiya said. The guard's primary mission is homeland defense, so if there's a chemical spill or attack or a natural disaster, it's guard troops who are trained and assigned to help. From that standpoint the medical training at Froedtert could reach far into local neighborhoods, he said, and it has an added benefit: In the event of a disaster here, the 128th people will already know their way around Froedtert, know how it works, and know some of the people they'd deal with or help.

Hammond has heard stories from people who have served in Iraq, stories of courage and heartbreak, and stories of people who now live but who would have died a decade ago because battlefield medicine was not as advanced.

"After hearing those stories I want to do that. I want to do the training because it makes sense now. It's that little piece, because not necessarily all the information that's given you necessarily makes sense - until you put it into action."

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