PITTSBURGH –
Three instructors with the Medical Education and Training Campus (METC) located on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, presented a continuing education (CE) session at the American Medical Technologists (AMT) Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa. July 23.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Devin Bigelow, Combat Medic Specialist Training course instructor, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jessica McCleary and Air Force Staff Sgt. Jheryl Stuckey, both Aerospace Medical Service Apprentice course instructors, led a presentation entitled Elite Training Redefined: Cutting-Edge Strategies in Military Medical Education to a room filled with 45 allied health professionals.
According to its web site, AMT is a member-led organization of allied health professionals that credentials and supports its certificants and promotes competence in healthcare delivery. The AMT Annual Meeting prepares its members to take on new challenges and leadership roles that benefit both the individual attendee and the profession. Attendees can earn up to 15 hours of CE throughout the four-day event. Army Lt. Col. Sherry Kwon, former METC Associate Dean for Academic Delivery, reached out to AMT while seeking opportunities to highlight METC’s mission on a national level.
“We needed to let more people know about our mission and ongoing excellence as the largest provider of military medical might in the world,” stated Kwon. “To our delight, the American Medical Technologists accepted our proposal in September 2024. This was our chance to break through and share what we do.”
The trio of METC instructors were hand selected for the assignment and built a presentation focused on demonstrating METC’s training and instructional delivery that civilian health professionals could relate to. “Overall, our goal was to do a blend of ‘how we teach medics here at METC’ and ‘what military medicine is’ for our civilian audience,” shared Stuckey.
Each team member was responsible for building sections of the presentation. Stuckey took lead on structuring the presentation based on the description in the CE session outline and organized the content flow. McCleary concentrated on the advanced technologies METC utilizes for their courses, and Bigelow was focused on METC’s instructional delivery and positive results.
“We spent months refining the (presentation) content so that we could best showcase what METC was all about, how we curate and sustain the best academic programming, our world class instructors, and of course, an opportunity to recruit new teammates, both military and civilian,” added Kwon.
During the presentation, it became apparent to Stuckey how interested the civilian medical educators were in how METC trains the nation’s future military medics. He also appreciated some shared commonalities with his civilian counterparts. “In our discussions after the presentation, I learned how similar our (military) student population can be with theirs.
“Being able to talk to educators and medical professionals who started off as enlisted medics like us was the biggest highlight for me,” He continued. “Some of them were even instructors in the ‘90s and ‘00s and had since gone on to build careers in medical education.”
Bigelow shared the sentiment. “I truly am blessed to be a part of this organization, and to have had the chance to talk to the associates and leaders of the AMT about why our education model works so successfully for our students.
“This opportunity to network with our civilian equivalents truly opened my eyes to the amazing mission we have in front of us and reminds me not to take this for granted.”