Penn’s patriotic mission to train Navy medical staff

A team of physicians gather around a mannequin "patient," assessing its vital signs, and then stabilizing the patient. As the simulation case wraps up, the team discusses how they would pass the patient along to the operating room, summarizing his injuries, which medications he was given, and what procedures they performed to stabilize him.

They will continue to a classroom to review video footage of the case, and talk through how they handled it, identifying areas to improve on for next time.

This isn't a typical group of trauma medical staff. They are all sailors in the United States Navy, and train with Penn Medicine's Trauma Division as part of an expanded and extended partnership that aims to provide military medical staff with the skills they need for deployment.

The first phase of the partnership was considered so successful by both Penn Medicine and the Navy that they launched the second phase of the partnership this month. The new program will triple the number of Navy teams trained at Penn Medicine, double the length of the program, and incorporate even more specialized training for each team, focusing on the specific challenges of providing medical care during combat.

Penn Medicine's Trauma Division completed the first phase of a pilot partnership with the United States Navy in June 2024. The three-year program embedded eleven Navy medical staff-four physicians, three nurses, a physician assistant, a surgical technician, and a Search and Rescue Corpsman-into the Level I Trauma Center at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center to train as a team and further develop their skills prior to deployment.

A main priority of the program is to build a team that works as a cohesive unit, in addition to sharpening individual skills to prepare for combat. The team trains together regularly, and all members of the Navy team are scheduled in the trauma bay at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center every Wednesday.

"Our experience suggests that outcomes improved as the team became more familiar with working together and built trust," says Commander Jay Yelon, a senior trauma surgeon, during the first phase of the partnership. "At a certain point, the team stopped needing to speak to each other- they could anticipate the next moves without saying a word. Being in sync like that can be the difference between life or death on the battlefield."

Read more at Penn Medicine News.