XENIA, Ohio - Medically trained Airmen from the Ohio National Guard’s 180th Fighter Wing helped provide free health care to more than 1,000 community members Aug. 11-12 as part of the Department of Defense Innovative Readiness Training program.
The event at the Greene County Career Center was a joint effort of the U.S. Air Force active duty and Guard, U.S. Army active duty and Guard and the U.S. Public Health Service.
Members of the 180FW registered patients, provided dental services and vaccinations, checked vital signs and helped with translations.
“An IRT can take place anywhere there is a great need for health care,” said Staff Sgt. Blayne Flickinger, an aerospace medical technician assigned to the 180FW. “It is awesome to be able to use my training to help Americans locally.”
Flickinger operated the My Accessible Real Time Trusted Interpreter system, provided to the IRT by Kettering Health, to help translate between families and medical providers whose first language wasn’t English.
“Being flexible and adaptive greatly helped because there were IT issues when we started and we had to identify them and work through them,” said Flickinger. “We also used alternative methods of translation, like cell phone translation apps, when we were having these IT issues.”
Interacting with the community is one key component in events like these, as the medical providers are the face of the military to the community members who attend.
“We are offering free health care to many people in the community that don’t have access to basic health care in their present situation, so for them to come takes courage and humility. That’s commendable,” said Lt. Col. Jennifer Durbin, a clinical nurse assigned to the 180FW. “I think the impact for the patients is also in knowing that we care and we are here to help them.”
A key part of the program is giving Airmen real-world training in the field.
“Airmen become more comfortable and confident in their clinical skill as well as their ability to come together with Joint Forces to provide medical care,” said Durbin.