More military medical personnel will be training in DMU’s Simulation Center.
The $77.2 million for defense projects across Iowa, approved by Congress and President Barack Obama as part of the 2010 Department of Defense appropriations bill, included $1.2 million for trauma response simulation training for Iowa National Guard medical personnel at DMU’s Iowa Simulation Center for Patient Safety and Clinical Skills.
The money will support formal training for military medics on managing mass casualty, trauma and routine emergency care and to enable them to maintain certifications. The partnership between the simulation center and the Iowa National Guard will fill a need for a centrally located training facility for all levels of professional citizen soldiers. “Our tenet is to provide high-quality, cost-effective training to prepare military personnel to be ready to go,” says College of Osteopathic Medicine Dean Kendall Reed, D.O., FACOS.
Reed and sim center staff are working with Iowa National Guard leaders to match the center’s training capabilities with the needs of Guard medical specialists and supervisors, physicians, nurses and physician assistants.
The training effort is not the first that DMU has offered for military medical personnel. Every month, soldiers from the 4224th Army Hospital, based at Fort Des Moines, train at the simulation center with an average of 30 nurses and medics.
“We want the center to be a resource for the community and the military,” says Michael Flood, D.O.’77, center chairman and DMU associate professor. “We want to help meet the military’s needs long-term.”
