Newswise — Medical students and graduate nursing students of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) will be airlifted from the university's campus here by Pennsylvania National Guard CH-47 Chinook helicopter to Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa., on Tuesday, July 11th, to take part in an annual battlefield training exercise.
USU will conduct Operation Kerkesner, a first-year medical student exercise, and Operation Bushmaster, a fourth-year medical student exercise, run concurrently from July 11-20 at Fort Indiantown Gap. Both are final exams for unique courses in the USU Department of Military and Emergency Medicine and are designed to closely replicate combat conditions and to test the students' abilities to care for people in adverse environments and adverse situations.
These field exercises are unique to USU's medical school curriculum and are designed to ensure that USU graduates are well prepared to practice "good medicine in bad places." Students participating in the training will begin the exercise with the CH-47 Chinook airlift from the campus to give them a better understanding of the limitations of medical care while in-flight.
USU, which is located on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center, is the nation's federal school of medicine and graduate school of nursing. The students are active-duty uniformed officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Public Health Service who are being educated to deal with wartime casualties, national disasters, emerging infectious diseases and other public health emergencies. Many of the university's graduates are currently supporting operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, offering both their leadership and expertise. Approximately one-fourth of all military medical officers currently serving on active duty are graduates of USU.
The CH-47 Chinook helicopter flight is scheduled for noon on July 11 and again on July 16.
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