By MC2 Karolina A. Oseguera
<< Lt. Cmdr. Ramiro Gutierrez speaks to a group of Vietnamese medical specialists during an emergency care training symposium. (U.S. Navy/MC2 Karolina A. Oseguera)
DA NANG, Vietnam - Medical specialists participating in Pacific Partnership 2014 hosted an emergency care training seminar at the Da Nang Military Hospital, June 9.
"Our goal today was to give the Vietnamese a perspective on how we approach emergency medical care in the U.S. health care system and to talk about triage and the importance of treating the most sick patients first," said Lt. Kevin Lunney, medical site team leader.
Topics discussed during the training were trauma management, wound care, triage, toxicology and teamwork. There were over 50 people in attendance, including Vietnamese physicians, nurses, and technicians.
"We wanted to engage them in a discussion about our practices as well as their own practices. They questioned our practices which gave us the opportunity to talk about our approach and how it differs from their approach."
The training concluded with demonstrations, group discussions on medical stories and obstacles and patient scenarios. The purpose of the scenarios was to categorize patients in severity codes based on the condition. The codes help the medical team quickly stabilize patients and give care to critical conditions.
"The interactions were probably the most rewarding part of the day to me," Lunney said. "The Vietnamese were very engaged in our small groups and they shared a lot of their thoughts, opinions and asked a lot of questions."
Other PP14 training symposiums will include a simulated medical evacuation, interactive basic life support training and orthopedic rehabilitation.
Pacific Partnership is in its ninth iteration and is the largest annual multilateral humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness mission conducted in the Asia-Pacific region.