Naval Hospital Pensacola (NHP) conducted an Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course for Navy and Air Force providers, Jan. 30-31.

The two-day ATLS course provides a joint military training exchange for physicians, physician’s assistants and nurse practitioners to learn a systematic approach for handling trauma situations similar to those found during deployments. NHP hosts the ATLS course mostly for local military providers to include service members stationed at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB) and Kessler AFB.

“The ATLS course gets [providers] ready for deployments and to potentially face traumatic situations,” said Thomas Dunmore, clinical nurse educator/professional developer, NHP. “We teach them how to handle trauma [cases] in a systematic way.”

Service members who attend the ATLS course are typically motivated to learn the material because they are learning about processes that are not typically seen in their daily patient care.

“The students we work with are only active duty, and they always seem to be extremely motivated,” said Air Force Maj. Mark Lytle, an ATLS instructor. “They understand the military thought process and are very interested in learning.”

The systematic approach that is taught includes utilizing a memory technique that uses the alphabet, such as “A” for airway, “B” for breathing, etc. This technique allows providers to focus on a primary assessment to address all critical concerns prior to moving on to the secondary assessment.

“In real life, a patient comes in and you go right down that list to make sure everything is covered and life is sustained,” said Dunmore. “That is what the systematic approach does and it works.”

At NHP, the ATLS training ensures mission readiness by providing nurses and physicians with hands-on experience through training simulations with injuries they can expect to see in a trauma situation.

“The [providers] are learning skills that they will need to know,” said Dunmore. “A lot of the surgeons do these things frequently, but sometimes we have the non-surgeons that are called upon to do some minor things such as inserting a chest tube.”

The simulated scenarios utilize corpsmen dressed with moulage to simulate a potential trauma such as a gunshot wound or a car accident. The corpsmen will act out the injury by providing feedback and visual clues to the indicators that align with the scenario to help make the training as realistic as possible.

“I remember the testing being pretty stressful,” said Lytle, a vascular surgeon at Eglin AFB 96th Medical Group. “Having your instructor watching you is very nerve-racking. Then, to know that you at least got the pathways down appropriately and then you are starting to think, 'You can do this.' It gives you more confidence to deal with patients, even if it’s not a trauma.

“That is actually what made me want to come back and teach this class,” continued Lytle. “Here I am today, on this side, and it is fun to watch them grow up through the process.”

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