Patient care top priority during Pacific Angel in Bangladesh

by 1st Lt. Chris Hoyler
Pacific Angel 10-3 Public Affairs

6/16/2010 - JESSORE, Bangladesh (AFNS) -- A total force of military doctors, dentists and optometrists participating in Operation Pacific Angel have provided medical care for more than 1,000 patients over the first three days of medical operations at the Monirampur Regional Training Center here.

Operation Pacific Angel, scheduled here through June 16, is a joint and combined humanitarian assistance operation conducted in the Pacific area of responsibility to support U.S. Pacific Command's capacity-building efforts. This humanitarian and civic assistance program is aimed at improving military civic cooperation between the U.S. and countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Bangladeshi, Indonesian and Nepalese military medics are providing care here alongside medical officials from the Air Force, Army and Navy.

Providing medical care in Bangladesh offers a unique training experience for medics, training that cannot be matched in a simulated environment, said Lt. Col. Paul Conner, the medical mission commander.

"Our providers will see degrees of care they are just not going to see in the U.S.," Colonel Conner said. "Our dentists are going to see levels of tooth decay that you just will not find anywhere in the developed world. Our ophthalmologists are going to see advanced stages of cataracts and other types of ocular problems, ones that we (in the United States) catch early because of nutrition or because of health care, but here there's a large part of the population that lives with those issues every day.

"For our general medicine folks, they'll see things like leprosy, some more exotic jungle diseases like malaria or dengue fever, those types of issues that don't exist anywhere in the first-world outside of a textbook," he added.

Colonel Conner has experience leading the medical mission on a Pacific Angel, as he led the team in Timor Leste during the summer of 2009. While he admitted there were differences in the culture of each nation that changed the way certain operations were carried out, he said the general lessons learned are the same.

"One thing that was very similar is that you learn to work with what you have," he said. "You work out agreements many weeks ahead of time, then you get on the ground and significant components of it change. So, as Airmen, we learn to be flexible; that's what we did in Timor and that's what we are doing here."

The goal of this mission is to see nearly 1,000 patients a day combined for the three general areas of dentistry, optometry and primary care.

This estimate is based on results from previous missions and the number of doctors in each area, said Capt. Teri Smith, a medical mission planner from the 13th Air Force at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.

"We're establishing a system flow for patients, so hopefully the number of patients will grow each day," Captain Smith said.

Colonel Conner said that since U.S. medics are working side-by-side with their counterparts from Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal, the experience provides those nations an opportunity to learn how the U.S. handles certain medical situations, as U.S. medics tend to have a more advanced level of training than many of their counterparts.

That creates a situation where the sides have to come to an agreement on how to handle an issue for which they have separate plans of attack, he said. The lessons the U.S. servicemembers learn are just as important and vital for them to put into practice after the mission is over.

"A key difference when dealing with medical personnel from other nations is culture and scope of practice," Colonel Conner said. "So, for example, we have very set procedures as military medics. Infection control is A, B, C. You never deviate from A, B or C, because that's the way we've been trained. We follow the checklist. It's our version of flight safety -- infection control. We have procedures that we follow. They have different training when it comes to infection control, and it's a good thing for our medics to see how they operate."

Bangladesh air force (BAF) officers are also on site providing translation for U.S. medics during the patient screening and care processes.

Capt. David Belcher, a general care physician with the 3rd Medical Group at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, said the opportunity to work with his BAF counterpart has been as important as any of the medical aspects.

"It's easy to click with these people because they care; they want to get to know you," Captain Belcher said. "We make a great team and having him here is a great benefit to help care for these people; not only for the communication, but because they know what these people have been exposed to. That personalized experience makes the whole visit invaluable for the patient, too."

Medical care will continue here through June 16.

Operation Pacific Angel missions were previously conducted in the Philippines in February and Vietnam in May. The final iteration will take place in Sri Lanka in August.