Joint medical training; Ft. Sam

[IDCWife]

Joint medical training to begin next summer




By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Oct 10, 2009 8:49:07 EDT

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas — A move by the services to combine their enlisted medical training will bring more than 24,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen here every year, starting next June.
The Medical Education Training Campus, the result of the 2005 base realignment and closure process, will school combat medics, corpsmen, radiology technicians and other specialties, said Col. Karen Cozean, the Army action officer for the METC. In all, 129 training programs will be moved here.
Only those who train to care for flight crews won’t make the trip to METC. The aerospace medicine school is moving from Brooks City-Base, Texas, to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
“The intent is to integrate the curriculum as much as possible but keep some of the service-specific training intact,” Cozean said.
Fort Sam Houston already is home to Army combat medic training; the Navy will move its “A” and “C” school from Naval Hospital Corps School in Great Lakes, Ill., and the Naval School of Health Sciences in San Diego and Portsmouth, Va.; the Air Force will move its training from Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.
“This is all an attempt to not only make it easy for students but keep the training integrated,” said Col. Kristan Wolf, the Air Force action officer for the METC.
Besides ease and efficiency, the project will save money, said Capt. Lori Frank, the Navy action officer for the METC. The savings — the services don’t have a dollar amount yet — will come from such things as sharing staff and equipment.
“There has never been a project like this before, to this level,” Frank said.
The 1.9 million-square-foot campus will cost $1.2 billion to build and equip. It will feature three dormitories, each housing 1,200 airmen and sailors; five buildings with classrooms and laboratories; and a fitness center.
Two other dorms will be built nearby for Army students. One will house 1,200 soldiers, the other 600. The 80,000-square-foot dining hall will be one of the largest in the military, with a seating capacity of more than 2,000.
Leading the METC will be an O-7 as commandant and an O-6 as deputy commandant. An E-9 will serve as the senior enlisted adviser, Cozean said.
A Navy officer will serve as the first commandant, an Army colonel as the first deputy commandant and an Air Force chief master sergeant as the first senior enlisted.
Those positions will be rotated through each service, Cozean said. Faculty members and support staff will total 1,400 people.
Airmen, soldiers and sailors will attend some of the introductory courses together; later, students will take service-specific training, the action officers said.
“There will be courses that are common to all three services,” Wolf said. “What we want is not just to save money, but when we go into theater, we want to be interoperable.”
Said Frank: “I think the training my corpsmen will be getting is not ‘just as good,’ it’s going to be 10 times better. No other time have they been able to update their curriculum based on best practices.”
Not only will officials glean each service’s best practices, but they’ll also implement the latest medical research and lessons learned, Frank said.
“A lot of services think we’re going to take away their heritage … but we’re doing our best to keep [that] intact,” she said.
Despite the understandable skepticism about how to consolidate the services’ training programs, the action officers are confident the training will be improved. “The METC is not changing the processes that the combat arms know and love,” Cozean said. “You’re still going to have your corpsman. You’re still going to have your medic. We’ll just help them operate more effectively and work interoperably in theater.”
Meet METC

The lowdown on the Medical Education Training Campus, a joint enlisted training center slated to open in June:
• Location: Fort Sam Houston, Texas
• Annual student load: 24,337 (13,197 Army, 6,008 Navy, 5,132 Air Force)
• Daily student load: 7,792 (4,033 Army, 2,606 Navy, 1,153 Air Force)
• Longest program: Cytology, the study of cells, 52 weeks
• Shortest program: Patient administration, four weeks

[docfish]

This is just an overall bad idea I think, I've worked with joint services, and they operate in too much of a different manner than Navy medicine, Just my two cents though...

[dvldocjoe]

Better freshen up on the Air Force and Army ranks when pushing the boots heading for school there. I can see some situations coming up fast.

[adcantu]

I do find it odd to put new Sailors in that position of having to adjust to both Navy life and being able to integrate with other services. A lot of pressure added on I think.

However the idea of a more standard training between services could be a good thing. I see that our military is moving to a much smaller one, with much more integrated services. Often times just having different names for things can mean life or death.

[Da-Chief]

Corps School is not moving until 2011.. Buildings havent even been done yet..

C-Schools are the first to move.. A-School last..

BTW FMTB will "NOT" be going there.. it is owened by the USMC, hence the reason it was changed from FMSS to FMTB.. (It was a shot across the bow).

Change is good, Folks will adapt and overcome..

I have had many Army Medics work for me, and I have worked for them..

The AIR FORCE Whiners though will be the interesting part.. They have been the Stick in the wheel from the beggining.

D/C

[DanM]

They should have done this years ago. There is one Navy Command and HM "C" school that has been "Tri-Service" for the last 13 years or so.

[IDCWife]

Originally Posted by Da-Chief

Corps School is not moving until 2011.. Buildings havent even been done yet..

C-Schools are the first to move.. A-School last..

BTW FMTB will "NOT" be going there.. it is owned by the USMC, hence the reason it was changed from FMSS to FMTB.. (It was a shot across the bow).

Change is good, Folks will adapt and overcome..

I have had many Army Medics work for me, and I have worked for them..

The AIR FORCE Whiners though will be the interesting part.. They have been the Stick in the wheel from the beggining.

D/C

A certain IDC tells me the AF IDMTs at the annual conference are the WORST.

[indy]

Do the Coasties (HS's I think) attend the IDC conf?

[IDCWife]

Originally Posted by indy

Do the Coasties (HS's I think) attend the IDC conf?

I believe so. It's an all forces kinda thing. DH had 2 coasties in his IDC class.