JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. -- The 459th Air Refueling Wing here has two stand-alone medical squadrons with seemingly similar missions - the 459th Aeromedical Staging Squadron and the 459th Aerospace Medicine Squadron. Both squadrons are even located in the same building. ASTS is upstairs and AMDS has the ground floor.
Moreover, they even have the same type of personnel, such as medical technicians and administrators. But look closer and it is clear their medical missions are completely different.
For ASTS, two major components make up the squadron - patient staging and critical-patient care. Its primary function is to man an En Route Patient Staging System that supports the movement of patients from the area of responsibility to a medical facility back in the United States.
“Ultimately, the goal is to take our patients who are injured downrange and get them to the definitive care they need,” said Maj. Tamara Rush, a nurse for 459th ASTS.
They load and unload patients from an aircraft and make sure that not only do they receive the best medical care but also ensure that they have their belongings, medicine and food for their travels across the world.
The second major function of ASTS is to develop and train critical care air transport teams.
“The CCATT teams are specialized medical professionals which are comprised of a critical care doc, a cardiopulmonary tech and also a CCATT nurse,” said Lt. Col. Caleb King, the senior administrator for 459th ASTS. “When a patient is injured and needs that type of specialized care, they (CCATT) are the team that transports them.”
However, before ASTS members or any Airmen of the wing deploy, they first need to be checked out by the personnel at AMDS.
“We make sure that you are medically ready and qualified to complete any mission that’s needed,” said Tech Sgt. Latoya Loving, a medical technician at 459th AMDS. “Whether that is at home station, out on a deployment, TDY … anything like that, we make sure that you are physically fit and ready to fight.”
A task like that can be daunting, especially on unit training assembly weekends. Since the majority of the “Liberators” at the wing are traditional reservists, on that first day, AMDS is usually flooded with customers.
“Saturdays are truly dedicated to physical exams and making sure that everybody is green when it comes to their status,” said Loving. “We jam-pack a month’s worth of work into two days.”
“It’s pretty labor intensive; usually our folks see about 100 patients or so for our Saturday mission as well as mix of the flyers which have a more intense set of exams than the non-flyers,” said Lt. Col. Tom Connelly, the administrator for 459th AMDS. “We touch everybody’s career in some way.”
“It can be stressful sometimes,” said Lt. Col. Jo Ann Serafini, the chief nurse executive for 459th AMDS. “But when you have an enormous list of things to do, and you get it done -- it’s very satisfying.”
The medical roles for AMDS are wide spread. They are in charge of administrating physicals and issuing profiles. They insert needles for immunizations and draw blood for lab work. They tell patients to open their mouths for dental and their eyes for optometry. They also give specifically detailed instructions while handing out a little cup when someone is ordered to be tested for the Drug Demand Reduction Program.
Before someone deploys, AMDS checks them out to make sure they are “good to go”.
“And when they come back we make sure that they are still okay,” said Serafini.
Even though the two different medical squadrons are different, they work well together.
If AMDS ever gets swamped with medical evaluations and short turnaround deadlines, chances are its Airmen have some friendly faces upstairs they can call on to help.
For example, every year around flu season, AMDS tries to get everyone in the wing to get their shot, and having the extra medical techs available from ASTS to help out is super helpful, said Loving.
Even though the different floors have very distinctively different medical missions, looking back, the overall goal is very similar.
“Honestly, the way I see it, we are all one, and we are just here to get the mission done,” said Loving.