By: Kevin
Upon returning from our Ohio trip, I was fully anticipating to settle back into my work schedule at the hospital. However, the Navy had different plans. I worked a whole two shifts before I was placed on administrative hours so I could prepare for departure again.
It turns out I had been selected to be an instructor for Navy Corpsmen who were preparing to go to an operational job with a ship, the US Marines, or other forward-deployed medical facilities that would be dealing with trauma patients. I would be helping to train the Corpsmen of the future.
So what did this mean for me? Well, for starters, I would be living in a hotel for 8 weeks. This in itself was an interesting experience. I was given a daily allowance for food and incidentals. I could eat out all three meals a day for the entire trip. However, my waistline would have doubled if I had done that, so I opted to eat out some and make food in my hotel room part of the time. Now, cooking in a hotel room which only has a microwave and mini-fridge was a bit of a challenge. I could not get food that needed to stay frozen (no freezer, just a fridge), nothing that required a pan to cook, and nothing to go in the oven. I looked into a meal-prep service, but many of them required at least some stove-top prep, and the ones that were fully prepared were delivered once a week. That means I would have to play Tetris with a week’s worth of food in the mini-fridge. Instead, I simply went to the commissary/grocery store and cruised the aisles for food I could easily store and prep.
The training included classroom and skills practice, followed by 5 weeks in a local Level-1 trauma center to care for actual trauma patients. The Corpsmen who were selected for this training had not been involved in patient care for the past few years, so a good dust-off of skills was needed, but they were eager to learn and the classroom portion went well. Next the Corpsmen actually performed direct patient care at a local Level 1 trauma center which opened their eyes to patients they may actually encounter. They started IVs, dressed wounds, inserted Foleys, and help set broken bones among other tasks. Everyone agreed that the training was invaluable to them at the conclusion of the course. It is my understanding that the program is intended to be expanded around the US over the coming years to benefit even more Navy Corpsmen.
Of course I didn’t pass up the opportunity to enjoy Florida on my days off. I visited Daytona Beach and the Ponce Inlet lighthouse, toured the St. Augustine distillery and the Angell & Phelps chocolate factory, as well as various restaurants around Jacksonville. I spent a decent amount of time soaking in the Atlantic, which is considerably warmer than the Pacific at San Diego. I met up with a retired Navy officer and her husband to check out the Central Florida Zoo followed by lunch.
The instructor assignment was considered unaccompanied and I flew to Florida by myself. However, Heather being the strong independent person that she is, decided that if I wasn’t in San Diego then she did not need to be either. With 4 kids and a dog jammed into the cab of my truck she hitched up the fifth wheel RV and towed it from California to Ohio to visit her family (who we just got done visiting about a week prior). She spent a few weeks there before hitching up again and driving to Jacksonville, FL to visit me as well. After a few weeks in Florida she hitched up once more to start the journey back to California so she would beat me back to San Diego as I flew back at the completion of the course. All in all it was a great experience and would do it again if given the opportunity to teach the course to future classes.
The Ready Rovers 