Air Assault! Airborne! Cadet Medical Intensive Training!
OK, so CMIT may not roll off the tongue quite as well as ‘Air Assault’ or ‘Airborne’ during training; however, in the years to come it may turn out to be the most important Military Individual Advanced Development training course the cadets will take while at the U.S. Military Academy.
June 29 was the day that CMIT I kicked off and that class graduates Saturday as the first cadet MIAD class ever to go through such medical rigors at the academy. CMIT II will run from Sunday through mid-August and, when all is said and done, approximately 85 cadets will be Emergency Medical Technician and Combat Lifesaver qualified.
CMIT course director Benjamin Zederbaum, who has an EMS background and also works with the West Point Ski Patrol, was approached about six months ago by Master Sgt. Edwin Gargas, USCC Operations NCOIC, to develop a new medical MIAD at West Point.
Zederbaum wanted to have a program similar to the West Point Ski Patrol’s curriculum and then worked closely with Fort Sam Houston to develop training similar to the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians for the CMIT course.
“I felt very comfortable saying that we could execute the EMT strategy and then add Combat Lifesaver as part of the MIAD,” Zederbaum said. “So basically the foundation of the program is National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians and CLS.”
With six weeks to work with, Zederbaum tapped into his past and EMS background working in New York City to make contacts and found a couple of great partners in Fire Department New York and Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
After having discussions about what he was looking for in the training, he worked closely with Chief J.P. Martin, currently the chief of the EMS Training Center for the FDNY and the incident commander at the World Trade Center on 9/11 after the towers fell, and entered into a clinical rotation agreement between the academy and FDNY.
“It is extremely significant in cadet education as FDNY is the premier emergency services response agency in the country, if not the world,” Zederbaum explained. “The cadets are getting a first-rate experience by traveling in the ambulances in New York City for their clinical rotations and FDNY has facilitated it seamlessly.”
The MIAD mission had a few bumps along the way because of staffing requirement troubles for the military training program.
Zederbaum envisioned a staff of nearly 20 Army combat medics (68 Whiskeys) to teach the program, but the war effort has spread military medical resources fairly thin. So Zederbaum reached out to William Howe, a director of the emergency medical division at Maimonides Medical Center, to discuss pre-hospital care education at the academy.
“(Howe) reached out to me and said Maimonides wanted to help us, so I let him know what our resourcing needs were and he said they would do what they could to support our mission,” Zederbaum remarked. “Maimonides Medical Center sent us 18 instructors, and they came free of charge, volunteering their time seven days a week for a two-month period.”
With the way the War on Terrorism has played out over the last seven years, the need for medical training for all Soldiers is important. While enlisted Soldiers are receiving CLS training at Basic Training, this new MIAD gives cadets an opportunity to broaden their likelihood of saving more lives on the battlefield during the initial critical moments after an event occurs.
“The objective here is to give them situational awareness on the battlefield so they can effectively work with a medic and save lives that may not otherwise have been saved,” Zederbaum said. “It’s a very dynamic program and the cadets are being exposed to some of the finest pre-hospital care education available.”
Brigadier Gen. Robert Caslen, former Commandant of Cadets, and current commandant Brig. Gen. Michael Linnington both consider this program significantly important to the education of these future leaders of the Army.
“[They] have a focus on medical and military that is very clear and they understood the importance of the medical mission to the military,” Zederbaum said. “[They] really want to see West Point keep up with AMEDD’s objective, which is currently to have every single enlisted Soldier going through basic training get CLS (training). With that, it is a high priority to the academy and we’re trying to step up to the bosses’ objectives, which are to sharpen the cadets’ medical skills.”
While it’s really a medical orientation for the cadets, they were bombarded with tons of medical information. Seven days a week they learned patient assessment, airway management, hemorrhage control and how to prioritize injured patients plus more complex medical concepts such as anatomy and physiology in this comprehensive program.
Cadets weren’t sure at first at what to expect, but in the end it turned out well for them.
“None of us knew what to expect at all. If you get chosen for Airborne or Air Assault schools you can ask a buddy who went because it’s the same every time,” said Firstie Michael Marano. “I was unsure what to expect with this program and I was a little nervous about it, but it has turned out really well.”
Learning foreign terms and having to read about five chapters of medical information an evening while sitting through hours of lecture every day had a way of wearing down the cadets.
“Sitting through 10 hours a day of learning a new language was very mentally draining and you’re ready to hit the bunk at the end of the night,” Marano said. “It’s very intensive, but I think we all realize it’s very good for us.”
The cadets taking the course felt the most exciting parts of the four-week session were the opposition forces 12-mile ruck march and the ambulance ride-along in New York City with FDNY.
One of the most exciting moments that came during CMIT I was the assistance by Firstie Stephanie Barry in the delivery of a baby in the Bronx. This showed how the cadets had taken their studies seriously enough to be calm and knowledgeable during a very important circumstance in someone else’s life.
“It’s always important for them to remain calm,” said Kevin Tse, EMT from Maimonides Medical Center. “If they panic, then the situation can go in the wrong direction, so they need to try to stay in control of the situation. On their ride-alongs, the best form of instruction was to let them get their hands in there and let them be in control.
“They weren’t alone, we were beside them and watched them closely,” Tse added. “We jumped in and did the patient care if it was necessary. From watching them, a lot of these cadets, I think, are more than capable to save someone’s life.”
Overall, the 85 cadets who get this training this summer will have a very solid foundation in CMIT, but the program has a lot of room to grow in the future.
However, the end state is what these cadets will do once they become officers and leaders in overseas areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The medical mission is truly what is most important,” Zederbaum said, “and that is to bring more Soldiers back home alive.”
Despite the rough start with trying to get a new MIAD off the ground in six weeks, Zederbaum hopes that this will become as much of a MIAD staple as Air Assault and Airborne schools are for cadets.
“I envision long after I’m gone and these cadets have long since retired from the military that generations later this program will have morphed into something we have never dreamed was possible,” Zederbaum said. “From a director’s standpoint, that’s what I want to see happen.”
