En Route Care Training

Finished up the last of three weeks of training friday. Wednesday-Friday the trauma nurses went thru a new course developed by Naval Operational Medicine. It was a mix of classroom instruction on flight physiology and environmental stressors along with equipment familiarization and trauma scenarios. The class culminated friday with a trip to New River Marine Corps Air Station for in-flight training. We split up the class and flew around coastal N. Carolina for the morning with two instructors and a sim-patient along with monitors, IV's, oxygen, ect. I have done simple MEDVACs in the past while I was on a surgical team, but quickly realized this was an entirely different realm of "complicated". Our helos will be flying with all doors and windows open while in theatre, and the prop wash is like a mini jetstream blowing thru the fuselage. The noise prevents us from hearing anything....I'll be lucky if I can hear myself think. Here's the biggest kicker: I will probably be flying at night. The pilots are becoming more adverse to daytime operations, and most flights will be at night in a blacked out cabin.........my instincts will be heavily relied upon.