IMAGE CONSCIOUS
ANYBODY CAN FIX A CT. IT TAKES A REAL TECH
TO FIX IT IN A WAR ZONE.”
To mitigate the impact of extended ship- ping times, we looked at all the problems we’ve had with the CTs and assembled a parts kit to satisfy all those problems. We’re now looking at the probability of placing parts kits at the actual location.
TRAINING POSES ITS OWN CHALLENGES, YES? Most units are on the ground for 10 to 12 months. We’ll go in and work with the 68 Alphas [Military Occupational Specialty 68A, Biomedical Equipment Specialist], providing hands-on training, showing them things that we have learned over the years and techniques that aren’t cov- ered in their training courses. Before long, that unit is gone, and we’re back to a new unit—new people with the same problems. So we go back in and begin the training process all over again.
The theater has ample basic, apprentice- level, school-trained biomedical main- tenance technicians. What they lack is experience. That’s what the FRA-M brings to them—both the experience and the knowledge.
ISN’T TRAINING ALONE SUFFICIENT? Before deploying, the unit often sends select biomedical equipment repairers to additional training on specialized systems, such as the CT scanner. However, they
72 Army AL&T Magazine
usually just attend the specialized training and go straight into theater. Some unit members have told me they spent almost two years before deployment going to school—one school after the other after the other. They go to some of the same training our FRA-M does, but they don’t have time to work with the equipment or with other people.
Sometimes, they’ve had so much training within such a short period of time that they have trouble separating one system from another; they get too much train- ing without experience. Working with experienced techs gives them critical on- the-job training with real-life scenarios. The instructors can’t teach how something will break down. When I’m in theater, I hear a lot of, “They never taught me that at school!”
WHY DON’T MORE IN THE FIELD HAVE EXPERIENCE? As with most technical fields, medical maintenance skills are perishable when not routinely sustained. One would think that with a protracted war, eventually the expe- rience level of our biomeds would increase; however, the on-again, off-again approach of TOE [Table of Organization and Equip- ment] Soldiers providing maintenance during deployments and being restricted while in garrison inhibits the continuous sustainment of their skills. This is also
compounded by the grade structure asso- ciated with TOE- and TDA- [Table of Distribution and Allowances] type orga- nizations. More often than not, the grade structure calls for junior technicians, and the experience level of medical maintain- ers in deployable units is lacking. What we have are 68As just out of school, but any- body with experience is not there anymore.
The Medical Command recently included the 68As in its Training with Industry Program. The program leverages train- ing opportunities available from major vendors. The primary example is Philips, which provides a lot of radiological and imaging systems, such as CTs and X-rays, that our deployable hospitals use in the- ater. The Soldiers in the program attend Philips Training Center, going to classes as well as actually participating in the train- ing of official students there in the labs. It drills the information into them.
Although several of the big-ticket items may be manufactured by Philips, there are numerous items and various makes and models of imaging systems and equip- ment deployed in the theater today—for example, Ziehm C-arms, VERTX CR systems, MinXray portable X-ray systems, Fuji CR Systems, Hologic C-arms, Sie- mens portable X-ray systems, Chloride CT UPS systems, and GE portable X-ray systems. Our goal is to have these Train- ing with Industry technicians assigned to USAMMA’s Center of Excellence for imaging systems at Tracy, where they receive additional training and experience on the many types of equipment they can expect to come across in theater.
This program is new to the biomedical equipment maintenance field. The first 68A Soldier to complete it just left for Qatar in June. It’s exciting. If it continues to work, we can get a stream of Soldiers in these positions.
”
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