Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Lincoln Sailor Deployed To Aid Puerto Rico
Lt. Andrew Loomis of Lincoln recently deployed aboard the USNS Comfort to aid in Puerto Rico recovery efforts.
Loomis is among five emergency medicine physician residents from Naval Medical Center Portsmouth who embarked on the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort in support of relief efforts for those affected by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, as part of their residency training.
Loomis works in the casualty receiving area aboard Comfort.
Comfort was to receive four staff emergency physicians from Navy Medicine East when the ship was activated. Cmdr. John Devlin, the residency program director at the medical center and medical director of casualty receiving aboard Comfort, presented the idea to give more physician manpower and allow residents hands-on learning by executing the mission.
The five are senior residents who’ve been through four years of medical school, an internship, are in their third residency year and are only nine months away from graduating.
“I say it’s win-win,” said Devlin. “The people of Puerto Rico are getting more emergency medicine physician manpower than they would have had, had we gone with the original plan. And from the resident standpoint and the Navy’s standpoint, we are getting five junior physicians that, for their entire career, will have this experience base to carry forward to apply to missions in the future.”
Physicians in residency typically do not deploy.
“Here, we are coming out and doing medicine in a world that’s not at our own institution in response to a natural disaster, and that opportunity just does not happen,” said Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Perry, one of the residents with the mission.
Residents from the medical center embarked on Comfort in the past for Continuing Promise 2015. They came to provide primary care and humanitarian relief ashore.
“While [Continuing Promise] is a really great mission to be a part of, as emergency medicine residents-in-training, the ideal setting is to work in a place that allows us to respond to situations that receive different emergency patients, and to run an actual emergency room.” said Lt. Sean Murnan, an emergency medicine resident.
Physicians in residency programs, in both the military and civilian sector, already have the infrastructure of an emergency room in place for them in the hospital. They rarely get a chance to oversee what goes into setting up an emergency room until they’re on the operational side, after graduating.
“All of us had an individual role,” said Murnan. “All we had to do was kind of mesh those two together and create a plan that could receive a blend of the sickest patients around the island, which is what we’re tending to receive. “
With the help of the “Sea Knights” of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 22, another opportunity that’s offered aboard Comfort is the chance for the residents to personally medevac intensive care patients, with two physicians per patient treating them in the air.
“We offer a level of critical care in the air that the military system doesn’t normally provide,” said Perry. “Typically, for military air ambulances, it’s 20-year-old marines or soldiers who have traumatic injuries. Flying chronically ill, very sick patients in their 80s and 90s is not something you ever do in a Navy helicopter. So it’s a little unique here.”
“It’s like the perfect scenario for us,” said Murnan. “We’re actually able to take on these tasks individually, and come together and build this department, and then see how well it does. And so far, everything’s been pretty smooth.”
Comfort is currently underway operating in the vicinity of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to provide medical services with additional visits being planned around the island.