99th Medical Group joins Horn of Africa medical information exchange Published Feb. 14, 2008 By Lila Edwards Aerotech News DJIBOUTI -- Hospital personnel from the 99th Medical Group, Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., recently joined other medical professionals from Army Forces Central Command, U.S. Central Command Air Forces and Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, to take part in a medical information exchange with the Djiboutian national army at the Kempinski Hotel in Djibouti. The idea for the conference came from the director of Djibouti Health Services who visited ARCENT and requested they give the Djiboutian national army an idea of what the Army's basic medical/non-medical Soldier learns when it comes to basic medical skills. "To help [Djiboutians] better understand what some of these medical scenarios look like, we brought along moulage, which is the art of applying mock injuries for the purpose of training medical and military personnel, so they can see first-hand what it would look like on a real person if they saw it in the field," said Las Vegas native, Tech. Sgt. Traci Wilmoth, 99th Medical Group, Nellis AFB, Nev., education and training noncommissioned officer in charge. "These types of injuries are new to them, so it's important to simulate and make it as realistic as possible." Sergeant Wilmoth deployed with two other 99th Medical Group personnel, Master Sgt. Rochelle Hemingway, 99th Medical Operations Squadron, family medicine flight chief and Tech. Sgt. Dawn Scott, 99th Aerospace Medicine Squadron, flight medicine NCOIC. Learning new medical information and practicing it whenever possible is beneficial for the person as well as the patient they are called upon to help in a combat situation, said Sergeant Wilmoth. "All the information they have about basic medical skills will help them save lives because that's what we're trained to do--save lives," she said. "In the Djiboutian army an artillery man receives little to no medical training, so we were asked to provide a minimal number of tasks to train all of the DNA soldiers so they can see the different levels of medical training we provide our Soldiers," said Army Maj. Kent Hall, ARCENT Horn of Africa desk officer. During the information exchange, the Djiboutian soldiers were able to see and demonstrate how to treat heat injuries, conduct an initial evaluation of a casualty, and how to treat a fracture, a sucking chest wound or a broken bone. At the end of the exchange, the Djiboutian soldiers went through a battlefield scenario to apply the skills reviewed in classroom instruction.
