Two nurses and a corpsman armed with the desire to fill a gap in care to active duty service members aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune were recently recognized for their efforts by the United States Navy Nurse Corps.

The first place finish for the RADM Niemyer Award for Evidence-Based Practices for the implementation of an HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Program came after a two-year process for Commander Misty Scheel, Lieutenant Joseph Biddix and Hospital Corpsman, Second Class Ian Carroll.

According to Biddix, the award is not only a way to recognize one of the newest programs run by Nurse Corps officers at Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, but also recognition of Carroll for his dedication to the project.

Carroll is one of the first corpsman to be recognized by the Navy Nurse Corps for the RADM Niemyer Award.

“This is a big deal,” said Biddix. “He has been so gung-ho about jumping into this project. I always encourage our corpsmen to get involved in the projects our physicians are working on, but not many do. He’s been a vital piece to this program.”

Being part of the team recognized by the Nurse Corps was “surreal”, Carroll said.

“I didn’t expect to see my name on the announcement,” said Carroll. “I didn’t jump on this project for the recognition.”

The award, while exciting, isn’t the real win for the team; providing the PrEP Program to service members previously told such things weren’t available to them, is.

A PrEP Program uses a combination of medication (Truvada), regular screenings for sexually transmitted infection (STI) and lab work to help lower the risk of acquiring HIV by more than 92 percent.

Larger MTFs have PrEP Programs in place, which are managed through Infectious Disease specialists or Preventative Medicine clinics, Biddix explained.

NMCCL did not have either of those available, however, the team proceeded in creating the program due to the demand.

NMCCL’s program is nurse driven, Biddix said.

“All of this has been self-grown and organic,” explained Biddix.

News of the PrEP Program quickly circulated, increasing the need for more providers to be able to trained PrEP providers.

“We incorporated our Family Medicine Residency Program residents to help us,” said Biddix. “To our knowledge this is the first time a PrEP Program has incorporated residents as trained providers. The bulk of our volunteer providers are residents.”

Training from Navy Medicine East Portsmouth was adjusted to accommodate the family medicine physicians, Carroll explained, following the rigorous requirements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well. 

Currently the program at NMCCL has 22 providers working with 55 patients.

Much of the process getting the program started at NMCCL was having support from II Marine Expeditionary Forces and internal leadership as to why the program was a necessary when traditional means of preventing HIV infection like condoms were readily available to service members.

“We do a lot of education about why this is so important,” said Biddix. “Leadership, at first, asked the question of, ‘why can’t we just make them use condoms?’ The problem with this is we are still having HIV contractions even with the availability of condoms. We have to share with them why we should be using the latest medical advancements available. Once we got buy-in we had resounding positive feedback.”

Scheel, a public health nurse and lead nurse on the PrEP Program project, was also a critical part to gaining the internal leadership’s support, Biddix explained.

“I don’t think this would have happened without her,” he said. “She had to learn everything about this program. There were some things that shocked her, but she kept an open mind the entire time.”

Now the program, one of the largest in the Navy, is an example to the rest of the armed services’ MTFs wanting to establish PrEP Programs.

Carroll and Biddix explained their program, which is one of the largest within the Navy, has helped multiple other locations create HIV PrEP programs both within the United States and overseas.

The next step is to publish the program’s creation process as well as operational processes within a peer reviewed journal to act as a “blueprint” for other facilities, said Biddix, hopefully allowing those facilities hesitant about PrEP to see the benefits.

Establishing a community health clinic is another long-term goal, Carroll explained, for more than just PrEP, but for travel and women’s health needs as well.  

“It would be a kind of one-stop shop for STI and HIV PrEP,” said Carroll. “Right now, the process is more involved because of the referral process and appointments and getting the medication. A community health clinic on base would make it easy to get everything done in one place.”

For more information on NMCCL’s PrEP Program, call 910-451-2794 or 910-449-2555.

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