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Air Force medical personnel prepare for next deployment cycle

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Kimberly Spencer
  • 59th Medical Wing Public Affairs
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  The talent and dedication of our Air Force military medical members has ensured an incredible 97 percent survival rate at our Air Force and joint theater hospitals. The average patient movement time is now three days from the battlefield to stateside, which is remarkable when compared to the 10 to 14 days required during the Gulf War, or 45 days during Vietnam.

Despite huge successes in the medical career field, medical military members are far from a position where they can rest on their laurels.

"Air Force medicine will continue to be a highly adaptive, agile capability, a key part of Air Force expeditionary capabilities and culture," said Brig. Gen. (Dr.) David Young, 59th Medical Wing commander. "And our members of the Air Force's flagship medical center will continue to support that mission as long as we are needed."

The 59th MDW supports the Air Force's only level one trauma center, Wilford Hall Medical Center, located on Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and has deployed an estimated 2,100 personnel since 9/11.

Over the next month, approximately 180 deployers will depart for eight different locations in support of Air Expeditionary Force cycle seven and eight, according to Master Sgt. Orville Goff, 59th MDW deployment manager.

The Air Force Theater Hospital at Balad Air Base, Iraq, remains an epicenter for wounded warriors, and one of the main deployment locations for 59th MDW members. There, they treat more than 300 trauma patients every month and provide care to another 400 sick and injured patients. Of the roughly 700 patients seen per month, about 500 are U.S. troops and 170 are Iraqi soldiers, police and civilians and the remaining 30 are foreign national contract employees, insurgents or those of unknown status, according to Air Force officials.

Air Force medical personnel are also deploying in support of the Craig Theater Hospital located at Bagram AB, Afghanistan, which will include surgical positions beginning this summer, said Col. (Dr.) Don Jenkins, the 59th MDW General Surgery Department flight commander.

Air Force medics activated the 455th Expeditionary Medical Group at Bagram and assumed operational control in January.

Air Force members have safely aeromedically evacuated nearly 40,000 patients from theaters of operations since the beginning of operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom, provided compassionate care to 1.5 million people on humanitarian missions over the past six years and care for 3 million patients annually all over the world, according to Maj. Gen. Melissa A. Rank, the assistant Air Force surgeon general.

Air Force medical leaders stress the importance of remembering Air Force medicine is not simply about reacting to illness and injury.

"Despite our many successes, our medical members and deployers must continue to work hard within the months and years ahead to perfect the joint continuum of care for this fight and the next," General Young said. "We must continue to support the priorities of taking care of our joint warfighters and the air expeditionary force, taking care of our Air Force family members and building the next generation of Air Force medics.

"It's not the money or the notoriety we are working for," said Colonel Jenkins, who is preparing to deploy in January for the fourth time since 9/11. "Caring for our wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines is job one; ensuring our medical folks have the best training we can provide to do that is job two."

The colonel has spent more than 600 days in the U.S. Central Command Area of Operation.

"No one likes being away from their family; no one likes burdening their fellow medical members with more work in their absence," Colonel Jenkins said. "But it's our job, and that's what we do."