Have you met Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Sakina Herron? She is the USS Bataan’s newest embedded behavioral health technician.
As a behavioral health technician, Herron oversees patient intake for Sailors who are experiencing mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and stress. She is trained to ask direct questions and provide extra support to the medical department.
A behavioral health technician is a hospital corpsman that a Sailor is able to talk to about their mental health, what may be going on, how they are feeling, or the cause of their stress. They specialize in assisting and providing mental health care for Sailors and their families.
“I try and find solutions for their problems,” Herron said. “Whether that be different coping skills for them to work on or different resources for them to get the ball rolling on their mental health to ensure they get better.”
Behavioral health technicians were assigned to give ships the ability to provide more mental health care resources and decrease potential medical evacuations that may occur because of the difficulties of strenuous sea tours.
Trained specifically to support and assess mental health, they are given extra training and expertise to be able to ask the patient the right questions, feel comfortable, and be heard.
By having a behavioral health technician, the medical staff expands their ability to gather data, which will ultimately help to treat the patient and give them expedited care.
“Being able to have Herron take that initial step and get all the required items that I need sets me up for success and ultimately improves the overall health care of the Sailor and lets me take care of them,” said Bataan’s Senior Medical Officer Lt. Cmdr. Cesar Mojica. “Those elements can be family history, social history, what led to the event where the Sailor identified issues or problems, or diving deep into personal traumas that significantly affected them.”
Mojica said that having a behavioral health technician onboard adds needed strengths to the medical team.
“That is where behavioral health technicians excel,” said Mojica. “They are able to have these challenging conversations, not in the means of just trying to relive all those moments with the patient but trying to be able to understand the full picture to know why the Sailor got to the point they are in and how we can move forward to prevent it and treat it.”
“Mental health is very important,” said Herron. “Your rank, gender, or age does not matter, if you need help we are always available.”