"It's been really good to get repetition, that's one of the best things that comes to training," Jameson said.
Jameson is part of the Carolina MEdiC program that Fort Bragg's 18th Airborne Corps are participating in. It's a one-of-a-kind program with UNC Health that Dr. Matthew Eckert said helps with soldiers' mental, physical and emotional well-being in the field as they deal with a large number of patients, some of them who need advanced care.
"Our patient volume, complexity, and acuity is something that is challenging to find at many of the military hospitals," Eckert said. "The medics and physicians and nurses ... come here to practice their skills and maintain their peak readiness. So, when they're called upon, they're ready to perform."
From the emergency department to the surgical trauma intensive care unit, active-duty nurses, doctors, and medics are exposed to a fast-paced, unpredictable work environment before any upcoming deployments.
Program manager Nate Stokes said burns are one of the areas of medicine that are "difficult to simulate," but in Chapel Hill, the hospital is the "perfect training ground."
"It adds a realism, it adds an element of complexity that they're able to unwind," Stokes said. "By having real patient populations here that those medics can work on, we're preparing them to function on the battlefield."
Stokes said the key to the program is local partnerships to expand their resources.
"Carolina MEdiC exists to help our Army, Navy, and Air Force partners enhance their medical readiness using our patient populations, our facilities, and our subject matter experts to tailor training solutions to increase that medical readiness in ways that they struggle to do on their own without those resources," Stokes said.
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