MSSP575: SKILL INSTRUCTION FOR CORPSMAN AND ARMY LEARNERS (SICAL): CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT FOR ENLISTED MILITARY HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS.
Caitlin Tallant, MD, MBA1; Kenneth Stransky, MD2; Andrew Slaughter, MBA3; William Sweeney, MD2; Brenton Franklin, MD, MHPE2; 1Naval Medical Center Portsmouth; 2Walter Reed National Military Medical Center; 3United States Navy
Introduction: In the operational environment, hospital corpsmen fill extensive and vital roles in the administration of medical care, management of healthcare administration, running of occupational health and safety programs, and conducting medical training programs for non-medical service members. Despite this huge range of responsibilities, training for these roles after corpsmen "A" school for general duty corpsmen and "C" school for specialty Navy Enlisted Classifications (NECs) is composed entirely of on-the-job training. This presents opportunities for significant knowledge gaps, with the onus of training falling on the medical providers who are balancing many other responsibilities. The aim of this project is to create a curriculum and organized framework to teach corpsmen a broad range of topics and essential skills in the operational environment, with the goal of significantly reducing the burden of implementation on medical providers.
Methods: A multi-module curriculum is being developed that integrates the standards set forth by the Naval Education and Training Command's Personnel Qualification Standards for Hospital Corpsman [NAVEDTRA 43699-2A] and modified using feedback from subject matter experts. The curriculum will be designed to seamlessly integrate into weekly departmental training for operational units and covers a wide range of topics such as common Sick Call complaints, procedural skills, healthcare administration, occupational health and safety programs, preventative medicine, medical equipment, as well as pharmacology and laboratory fundamentals. This curriculum is based on a similar training program currently being used for enlisted medical assets at military treatment facilities. Participants will be polled after each session to evaluate course effectiveness and relevance.
Results: The data from the post-session surveys will be qualitatively assessed and organized to assess course effectiveness and areas for improvement. This will allow for continuous improvement and optimization of the curriculum.
Conclusion: Data and feedback from this curriculum will be forthcoming, and we hypothesize that it will be a well-received solution to address a distinct and thus far unaddressed need for operational medical training. The intent of this curriculum is to be self-sustainable for operational forces and to eventually utilize the organic medical assets of the operational unit, such as Independent Duty Corpsmen and corpsmen with specialty NECs, to conduct the training independent of location. This curriculum will fulfill corpsmen training requirements and empower operational medical providers to conduct effective and ongoing training to develop their hospital corpsmen.