Aug

12

AF Medical EPRs

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This might come in handy: the good folks over at Air Force Writer have begun compiling some examples of EPR bullets that Air Force Medics can use. So far they only have examples for 4A0X1 (Health Services Managers) and 4B0X1 (Bioenvironmental Engineering), but I suspect that EPR samples for the other AFSCs are in the works. Also: a list of useful phrases to incorporate into EPRs. They also maintain a good list of unofficial Air Force community sites.



Aug

9

AF Medic is OAY!

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The Air Force selects twelve enlisted members each year as “Outstanding Airman of the Year” (OAY), and the competition, as you can imagine, is pretty tough. This year, an Air Force medic named Tammy Shaw has been honored as one of the 12 OAY:

Tech. Sgt. Tammy Shaw…(a) noncommissioned officer laboratory technician at the base medical center, Shaw was recognized for her on-the-job leadership and job performance as well as her community involvement. One of her working accomplishments was to pilot the Department of Defense’ largest DNA collection site, 38,000 samples, with only a 0.02 percent rejection rate. Partly because of this, her laboratory was named “Best in DOD.” In addition to her working feats, Shaw completed 28 hours towards a bachelor’s degree in health sciences while carrying a 4.0 average. She also completed a Community College of the Air Force degree and became a nationally certified lab technician.

Interestingly, last year saw Airman Aubrey Linn selected as one of the 12 Outstanding Airmen, and she, too, is a laboratory technician. Chalk up another victory to the 4Ts!



Jul

30

Retired AF Medic on McCain/Obama Flap

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Military physicians are usually not afforded “spotlight” treatment by the media; that accord is usually reserved for operational (ie, Line) officers, and usually flag officers at that. But recently retired (2006) Air Force physician Colonel Katherine Scheirman has made some headlines lately by being an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, and most recently regarding the political hay over Senator Obama’s trip to Germany:

“In Germany, Senator Obama made the right decision to respect wounded troops, and the doctors and nurses doing crucial and time-sensitive work, by not making a visit that was characterized as a campaign event by the Pentagon. Senator Obama should be thanked for putting our military above politics. And, I would hope that John McCain would think in those same terms, the next time he is put in a similar situation. Senator Obama has voted for the troops when John McCain has not, most recently on the new GI Bill. I am happy that Senator Obama puts the welfare of our troops above politics.”

I hate to bring up “politics” here on Air Force Medics, but seriously — her role as Chief of Medical Operations for USAFE/SG has virtually nothing to do with what occurred (or didn’t) last week with the Obama & McCain camps. As a physician, she may have been concerned about troop welfare, but political visits by high-ranking officials are pretty routine. If a sitting Senator wants to visit troops, then he can and will. Her “expert” opinion as USAFE/SGO means very little, in this context.
And I say that as someone who worked with Dr Scheirman (very briefly) during our respective active-duty careers and found her to be a very nice, professional lady. It’s just that, in this instance, her comments are irrelevant, no matter what the Daily Kos kids and Democratic Underground wackos think.
Unrelated - but possibly of interest - Col Scheirman is also a graduate of the Baylor MHA program.



Jul

25

RIP, Colonel (Dr) George Martin

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It’s not too often that Air Force medics perish in a plane crash, but the B-52 crash in Guam last week that killed six Airmen sadly claimed the life of Colonel (Dr) George Martin. Col Martin served as the deputy commander of the 36th Medical Group, the Air Force clinic at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. By all accounts, Col Martin truly loved everything about the Air Force, both within Earth’s orbit and above it.

As a student at Ohio State, George Martin had posters of the galaxy on his apartment walls. Astronauts were celebrities to him — he seemed to know all of their names. He wanted to fly. He joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps and graduated in 1980. A bad knee kept him from space, but he still craved it, one of his classmates said. He went on to medical school at OSU, and he later specialized in emergency medicine and aerospace medicine. He became a flight surgeon.

The Barksdale AFB website has a memorial page for the six Airmen; five of them were assigned to Barksdale; only Col Martin was assigned to Andersen AFB. Colonel Martin leaves behind a pregnant wife and young daughter. RIP, Col Martin.



Jul

20

Baylor MHA

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How many of you are familiar with the Baylor MHA program? It’s the military’s Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) program that partners with Baylor University. The actual program is conducted at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. It is taught by both civilian Baylor professors and military instructors, and the prerequisites for entry it is pretty tough to get into.

“If you graduate from college with a 2.0 GPA you can still apply to Harvard Business School’s MBA program,” Coppola says. “You won’t get accepted, but you can apply. Here at Baylor, you have to be a top-level performer just to be allowed to apply - and then there is more culling on this end.” (Patrick and Coppola, for example, competed as students against nearly two dozen other soldiers for two of the Army slots).
“The students refer to it as ‘taking a long drink from a fire hose,’” says Lt. Col Nick Coppola, the program’s director. “Typically, the first year they spend about 40 hours in class and another 50 hours studying each week in addition to maintaining all the other military standards required of them. So that’s a pretty appropriate metaphor.”

The program consists of one academic year at Ft Sam Houston totalling 60 credit hours. Courses include strategic planning, quantitative analysis, international health, epidemiology, finance, information systems, health policy, and medical jurisprudence. A grueling year, especially when coupled with military requirements such as physical fitness and team projects.
After completing the academic year, students are sent to year-long residency programs at large hospitals or other healthcare agencies, such as Johns Hopkins, Wilford Hall Medical Center, and Ben Taub General Hospital. During residency, the students observe and learn about managing large healthcare systems, complete various projects for the COO or Administrator, and complete a comprehensive Graduate Management Project.
The academic standards, the comprehensive course of study, and the demanding residency all add up to the Baylor MHA program being ranked #20 in the nation by US News & World Report; it is almost always in the top 25 out of more than 300 programs in the nation.
Also of note: the Baylor MHA program is open to all branches of military service (AF, Army, Navy) and also to civilians in the Veterans Administration. Graduates are largely healthcare administrators (MSC officers), but every class also includes a handful of nurses, at least one physician and one dentist, and a smattering of allied health officers such as pharmacists and podiatrists.
If you’d like to learn more about the Baylor MHA program or the history of it and the alumni, one of the long-time professors in the program, David Mangelsdorff, maintains a large list of links and resources.
And how do I know so much about the program? Why, I’m a graduate, of course! If you plan to make the AFMS a career and have a passion for healthcare administration, then this is the program for you. You will learn things and meet people that simply can’t be duplicated in a “civilian” MHA program.



Jun

26

Air Force Medical Promotions!

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One of the happiest days in any Airmen’s life is finding out that you have been selected for promotion, and today the Air Force Personnel Center released the list of personnel who have been selected for promotion to the ranks of Technical Sergeant (TSgt) and Master Sergeant (MSgt). Here is the entire TSgt list, and here is the entire MSgt list. If you only want to know about the MEDICAL promotees, keep reading here…!



Jun

12

AFMS News Roundup

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You’ve read about CCATT here before, and now you can buy some nifty CCATT gear from some folks in Ohio at the CCATT Shop.

Some optical news: a team from Wilford Hall (WHMC), Sheppard AFB, and an Army unit deployed to St Kitts - tough assignment! - and provided optometric care to hundreds of villagers. The good folks at Lions Clubs also helped by providing donated eyewear. And retired Colonel Stephen Waller, the former chief of ophthalmology at WHMC, is still serving in a new capacity; he “deployed” to Iraq with a mobile “crash cart” to provide care to hundreds of Iraqis.

And the long march towards consolidation continues: Wilford Hall Medical Center and Brooke Army Medical Center, the two bastions of military medical care in San Antonio, are moving closer to becoming an integrated “San Antonio Military Medical Center” (aka SAMMC). Of course, if you were in San Antonio in the late 80s/mid 90s, this might sound vaguely familiar: you might recall “JMMC” - the Joint Military Medical Command. This current effort to integration, however, is likely to be permanent, as it has the force of BRAC behind it.



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