Comfort Crew Members Share Stories in Washington

[thedrifter]

Comfort Crew Members Share Stories in Washington
Story Number: NNS030808-08
Release Date: 8/8/2003 200 PM


By Doris Ryan, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Public Affairs

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- A panel of six crew members from the hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) shared their stories at the Women Officers? Professional Association (WOPA) Symposium recently held at the National Defense University, Fort McNair, Va.

During the panel discussion, they candidly spoke of their professional and personal experiences while deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

?The Comfort is a floating medical treatment facility (hospital), with the primary mission of providing operational medical support. The secondary mission is humanitarian support,? said Capt. Margaret Ann Connors. She was the ship?s clinical coordinator for inpatient services during Operation Iraqi Freedom and moderator of the panel discussion.

After her presentation, the other members of the panel spoke of their experiences. The first person a patient would see on Comfort was one of the 12 hospital corpsmen on the flight deck wearing a white shirt with a large red cross.

?Our primary focus was patient safety, moving them from the helicopter to the hospital. It was a real learning experience for me, since I had never been on a ship before. We quickly became a team, and an extended family,? said Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Pam Medrano.

She told the group, ?We never expected to be dealing with children in war. One child, a 3-year-old girl with burns, took a little piece of all of us with her when she left the flight deck and went to casualty-receiving.?

All new patients were evaluated in the casualty-receiving unit, triaged by teams of providers, and moved to the operating room if immediate surgery was needed, or to the intensive care unit or one of the wards.

?The 600 surgical cases done on the ship involved multiple procedures on the same patient,? said Lt. Cmdr. Patricia McKay, an orthopedic surgeon on the ship. For instance, she might team up with a plastic surgeon to work on a patient?s hand while another physician attended to the patient?s leg.

?I can?t say I miss it, but I did have an opportunity to learn and do things I wouldn?t have been able to do in a hospital clinic. I saw a lot of patients with incredible injuries. We had several Marines; they were so happy and grateful to see us, and they just wanted to hold our hands. That was important to them,? said Hospitalman Sonja Feltovic, a staff member in the post-anesthesia care unit.

?We saw patients from 3 to 80-years-old. We saw burns, gunshot wounds, every kind of injury you can imagine on a battlefield," said Lt. Cmdr. Mary Brantley, assistant division officer in the Intensive Care Unit. "One of our first was a 3-year-old burn patient. Her burns were so severe, her mother trusted us to take care of her. She put her baby into the arms of a Marine and asked him to take care of her. We didn?t know where the parents were, but several days later, her young aunt came aboard for treatment, and we kept them together as much as possible.?

?One of the best things on the ship was the connectivity. I remember one young Marine in the recovery room. The doc was on the phone to his parents at home letting them know their son was all right and what was going on with his care. His parents e-mailed family photos that were put on the wall around his bed,? said Lt. Cmdr. Mary Gerasch, a staff nurse aboard Comfort.

?This panel discussion clearly illustrated, for those in attendance, the level of medical proficiency and compassion inherent in every crew member aboard the USNS Comfort,? said Capt. Christine Curto, a member of the WOPA Board of Directors.


http://www.news.navy.mil/search/disp...?story_id=8906


Sempers,

Roger