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Regular Joe
 
Group: Past PNET Supporter
Last Login: 1/18/2006 3:55 PM
Posts: 201,
Visits: 26
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OK...
Lets say I take a 91W medic contract with the California Guard in Los Angeles...probably the 160th 3rd...
What would my weekends be like doing the once a month routine...
And if I were deployed overseas what is the "normal" deployment time for Guard??? 6 months???
I figure getting deployed overseas is a 80% sure thing...I have no problem doing my part..I just need a realistic deployment time frame so I can do some planning..such as finding new civilian back-up jobs..ect.. I have to pay the bills somehow 
...I am deciding on re-enlistment..this time as a 91W in the Guard and need some info on what to expect and what it will be like....so far recruiters have been feeding me BS.....
Thanks
Chris
"... First, were we truly men of courage.... Second, were we truly men of judgment. Third, were we truly men of integrity.... And finally were we truly men of dedication."
President John F. Kennedy
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Trooper
Group: Past PNET Supporter
Last Login: 8/10/2005 2:15 PM
Posts: 764,
Visits: 6
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join the club merrec, hard to get a straight answer from people who are only concerned about feeding you enough BS to sign on the line =(
Psalm 144:1Blessed be the LORD my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight
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Trooper
Group: Past PNET Supporter
Last Login: 3/5/2006 3:25 PM
Posts: 595,
Visits: 50
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OK, your right in my lane.
I've done it now for four years in the Texas Guard.
First, let me say. If you want to be a good "doc" - if you
already don't have good to exceptional medical skills then
find them on your own. The medical skills you will pickup
in the Guard will be marginal. If you have anything serious
on drill weekends or during your AT (plan for it) your skills
picked up in the Guard will not prepare you to handle it.
You will get basic assement skills and I do mean basic. You will
learn IV's, blood pressures and the like. You won't get advanced airways unless your state is fully training their guys in all the new 91W skills. Then you still won't get the training on live patients.
So first of all, seek out good training and get certified to do them. If you are certified and it's within the limits of your training, the military will let you do it. Find out what your PA's and Doctors will let you do.
Our drill weekends are rather mundane. Little to no training. I
did a training schedule for the first 6 months I was the supervisor of
our section. It went out the window the next month. Missions, cancelled them all. In Texas, you can't fart without a medic around.
PT tests, heavy equipment training, ranges, field training, for us -Engineer misssions. I like it that way but it hurts not being able to train intensly the new medics. I was confident in my skills and knew I could handle most of the things I ran into but the younger ones or those who didn't take it more seriously, I worried about. Texas hampers us that if we do anything invasive even in training, ie: IV training. A Line of Duty investigation had to be done by a commissioned officer. Which really stunk!
It all depends on your chain of command and your Doc's.
I say go for it and then push yourself and really earn the title of being called "doc."
Good luck!!
Hope this helps.
[82nd][abnwing][CIB][medical]
    
hooahmedic
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Cherry
Group: Registered User
Last Login: 2/28/2004 8:49 PM
Posts: 24,
Visits: 1
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merrc
I am not sure of your civillian level of training. I am a Paramedic and joining the CA guard let me know if you have alot of the current 91W links. I can post the links to the new 91W handbook and someothers if you like. I am leaving to go to my shift for the next couple of days but I post them when I get back though if you are interested
kary
"For me the action is the juice"
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Strac Trooper
Group: Registered User
Last Login: 9/14/2006 9:05 AM
Posts: 1,159,
Visits: 50
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Good article on the 91W's:
Forward Surgical Teams, Evacuations Saved Lives
August 2003
The use of far forward surgical teams and the rapid evacuation of casualties from the battlefield saved soldiers' and civilians' lives during the 37 days of fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom, attendees at a special Association of the United States Army symposium and exposition were told.
Brig. Gen. George Weightman, commander of the 3rd Medical Command and head of medical forces in the theater, said June 6 that Iraqi Freedom "was the most successful military operation in history, and it was also the most successful medical operation in history."
Before the operation began, he said that a surgical team was with each Army brigade, and a surgical company was with each of the three marine regiments involved.
"That's what saved lives, along with the 91 Whiskeys." Weightman was referring to the new medical military occupation skill that emphasizes trauma training for enlisted medics.
"The 91 Whiskeys were worth their weight in gold. That extra training they received really paid off."
The emphasis on both the military and medical sides was speed. "Baghdad, it's 300 miles away and it's all dirt road. If you're coming in from the west, there's one road and from the south maybe two."
To keep pace with the maneuver units, Weightman said that medical support areas were established 100 miles into Iraq for supplies and to receive casualties.
He said that he did not have as many medical evacuation helicopters as he wanted when the fighting started. "We flew their blades off."
Over the month plus, he said that Army medevac helicopters were supplemented by Marine and Kuwaiti aircraft.
Also as the U.S. and coalition forces crossed from Kuwait, "We did not have that luxury [to take three to four weeks] to set up combat support hospitals or even air ambulance units. ...The days of the 296-bed CSHs are gone. We need to get smaller."
Adding, "We had to mirror the maneuver units."
He praised coalition medical forces for their assistance, including the use of their ships for extended care. "We needed the assets they brought. ...we [also] needed to make the case to the world that we were a team of teams."
Weightman said that when the military operation began he had only 160 beds available on the Army side in Iraq, but USNS Comfort, a floating naval hospital, had an additional 1,000 if needed, and the amphibious assault ships that carried the marines into the theater had 300 beds apiece.
He said there also were 500 beds available in Kuwaiti hospitals if needed.
What was unexpected in the operation were the attacks of suicide bombers as the coalition forces advanced on the Iraqi capital and the need for the rapid transition to providing health care for injured Iraqi soldiers and civilians, Weightman said.
"EPWs [prisoners of war] and displaced civilians, we knew early on this was going to be the booger that we couldn't shake off," but the rapidity in which medical units had to deal with civilian wounded was surprising.
Complicating matters even before the military operation began was Kuwait's opposition to treating any Iraqis in the emirate.
In the 37 days of combat, Weightman said coalition medical teams treated 430 prisoners of war, 579 Iraqi civilians and 1,665 coalition casualties.
"What do you do with an amputee, a burn patient?" he asked about enemy prisoners and civilian casualties.
Weightman some of the civilian casualties were "human shields" used by Iraqi soldiers. In other cases, he said the "civilian casualties" were really soldiers who discarded their uniforms and then showed up for treatment.
As for the burn cases, he said they could have resulted from the bombing of Iraqi military or political targets or from house fires caused by toppling kerosene lanterns and stoves from the aftershocks of explosions.
Because of the high number of these injuries, "we developed burn centers in the combat support hospitals." In many instances, these patients then were taken to USNS Comfort.
Some were eventually flown to Germany and the United States for further treatment.
"I didn't anticipate the rapid deterioration of the Iraqi health care system." Weightman said, "The closer to Baghdad a person was the better the care. If a person was Sunni, [it was] better than Shi'a or Kurd. The military was better than civilian."
Complicating matters as more and more cities fell to the rapidly advancing soldiers and marines was the "systematic looting of hospitals. They took generators, beds and supplies when full-scale combat ended."
Among the lessons learned was the need to have all chronic medical conditions stable for at least a year before deployment. Weightman said this essential because of the growing number of contractors with U.S. and coalition forces. "They're older and don't get screened like we get screened. Lots of them are being treated for heart conditions and cholesterol."
A second lesson was the need to have more pediatric-trained physicians and pediatric supplies to treat children who were injured during the fighting. "We're going to see kids."
A third lesson was to increase the amount of sick call supplies available. "The longer you wait before an operation begins, the more sick call supplies you're going to use."
A fourth lesson was that having pre-positioned medical stocks did not necessarily shorten response times. "Equipment [generators, etc.] was not in that great shape," because of the extreme conditions in which they were stored.
Because of this, he said medical logistics need to be factored into the overall logistics plan.
But he realizes that medical logistics will be competing with other supply needs as the fighting goes on. For example, "one million gallons of gas was used a day in theater shows the scope of the logistics challenge."
While President George W. Bush announced in May that major combat operations were over in Iraq, the "war may be about half over for the MEDCOM" as coalition forces continue clearing out Ba'ath Party loyalists and guerillas, he said.
AUSA, the Office of the Army Surgeon General and the Army Medical Command co-sponsored the symposium.
AUSA's Industry Affairs Directorate produced the event that drew 1,100 attendees and 84 exhibitors.
Welcome to another Red Devil rehersal, only this time it's for real
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