Nine of ten corpsmen recently passed the Emergency Medical Technician basic course at U.S. Naval Hospital (USNH) Guantanamo Bay (GB), surpassing the national average, but not surprising to some.

“I am not surprised because we have really great corpsman here in Guantanamo Bay who are ready to learn and go above and beyond,” said Eddy Cardenas, senior enlisted leader, Directorate of Medical Services. Passing the course is the preliminary step in becoming a certified EMT.

“You are not done yet, but you have gained the knowledge, the knowledge is there,” Cardenas told the group at the conclusion of the class. Each of the corpsman passing the initial requirement qualified to sit for the National Registry EMT exam to become a certified EMT.

Cardenas was correct. The knowledge was in fact there for most of the students, with seven passing the exam on the first attempt, becoming certified EMT’s. The remaining students will have two additional opportunities to pass the exam.

The class was part of a pilot program designed to identify a more budget friendly option. The new procedure brought one instructor on island to teach, rather than paying for ten students to go off island for training. This saved more than $1,500 per student and decreased the reduction in staff timeframe away from the mission by 18 percent. The course also served as a refresher for students and introduced new information.

“This course helped us remember a lot of information we learned in Corps school and definitely taught us a lot of new things on the civilian side,” said Hospital Corpsman Cade Stanfield, USNH GB.

Bryan Brzycki, EMT basic course instructor, AB Tech technical college said, “Being able to bring this type of education to a remote system will enable these corpsmen to be more prepared when responding to any medical emergency.”

U.S. Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay embraces providing world-class care by maintaining a reputation for sustaining one of the highest patient satisfaction rates of any military treatment facility in the Navy. The patient population of approximately 6,000 includes military family members, government civilian employees and their families, special category residents, contractors, foreign nationals, and migrants.

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