TRAINING

During our downtime, we are expected to “train.” This can take many forms. One day, the Veterinarian came in and gave us a talk about taking care of the canines. I did not realize how many canines (not “dogs”) were in theater, and how many military vets there are to take care of them. There are hundreds of canines in Afghanistan, and they are increasing it all the time. To take care of them, they have a whole cadre of vets and vet techs. They are all Army, but they serve all the forces. I figured they would just be stationed in the big military bases, but the vets are spread throughout the theater, including many FOB’s (Forward Operating Bases- much smaller than where I am at, by a magnitude of a hundredfold). At our base, we have a few vets, including the one pictured talking to us. They have their own clinic behind our hospital, and their own OR. For some cases, they will actually bring the canines in to our OR’s to operate, including taking care of gunshot wounds to the canines. They even brought a canine in under anesthesia to use our MRI which revealed a slipped disk in it’s back! Hilarious!

We also do regular training. We had a couple of Army medics up with us from a nearby FOB, who were training with us. Here I was giving a talk and demonstration of putting a breathing tube in a patient, using a scope that has a small video camera built in to make it easier to make sure the tube goes in the right place. Training keeps everyone sharp, and is a nice break from taking care of the wounded soldiers and civilians that we see. It fits in well with what I do back home perfectly, and hopefully will make a difference in taking care of our warriors when they do come in.