Navy hospital unit trains on trauma care for Iraq

A stretcher team carries a soldier who had a seizure and suffered head trauma to a waiting medevac helicopter at FOB Cobra last week

CAMP LESTER, Okinawa — U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa has taken the first step in building its own cadre of advanced trauma life support experts, said a medical expert Sunday.

Dr. John H. Armstrong, a physician at the University of Florida, traveled to Okinawa to oversee two advanced trauma life support courses and the first ATLS instructor course to be taught on Okinawa.

“Surgeons typically use trauma skills,” Armstrong said. “However, a lot of trauma care is done in the emergency room or on the front line in Iraq by physicians who are not surgeons.”

They were the ones targeted for last week’s training, he said.

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