Fleet Surgical Team (FST) 8 is 1 of 4 embarked units aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) and transforms the ship into a role two-capable medical ship. Bataan is deployed as the casualty-retrieving treatment ship of the amphibious ready group (ARG).
The ARG comprises the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Mesa Verde (LPD 19), Harpers Ferry-class amphibious dock landing ship USS Carter Hall (LPD 50), along with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit Special Operations Capable.
FST 8 is an 18-member team of health care professionals, both officers and enlisted, who attach to a platform to augment their medical capabilities. FST 8 not only brings surgical care,
The Docs Are In
STORY By MC2 Danilo ReynosO
FST8 Provides Vital Capability to USS Bataanbut damage control, resuscitative care, internal medicine, in-patient level care, intensive care unit (ICU) capability, an in route care team, and a psychiatrist allowing the ARG to treat Sailors and Marines both physically and mentally.
“Without the FST, the ARG still has doctors on all the ships,” stated Internal Medicine Doctor Lt. Thomas Brooke, “They focus on spending a lot of their time on administrative roles, seeing sick call patients and conducting basic clinic operations. They don’t spend as much time doing high level care surgery, hospital care, or dealing with psychiatric complicated patients.”
In essence, FST 8 provides a function that is beneficial to the entire ARG, and the roles they play are critical in ensuring a higher level of care is readily available if needed.
“We bring a very robust medical capability. The main capability we bring is surgical care, as well as the critical care we provide,” said FST 8 Officer-in-Charge Cmdr. Helen Cann, who was recently selected for promotion to Captain. “We see and admit patients to the ward or ICU. Bataan would be limited in that capability if we were not here.”
The combined ARG medical team is constantly training and conducting drills.
One of these drills being a noncombatant evacuation operation, in which a U.S. Navy ship swiftly and efficiently evacuates civilians from volatile regions around the globe.
Another drill constantly practiced is a mass casualty drill. Both of these drills test the medical team’s cooperation, integration, communication, and stress capabilities.
They have conducted extensive training in order to face and excel in challenges they may encounter during deployment.
“These drills are helpful because they made us take a critical look at what our capabilities are and what are our limitations are,” said Cann. “Leadership sees what we have and what we do not have.”
Although the ship’s medical team is still accomplishing its own missions, FST 8 augments the medical proficiency and skill set the ARG offers.
“We add time to somebody’s life that they might not otherwise have if we had to transport them to another ship without the same level of medical capabilities or wait until we could medically evacuate them to whichever base is in the area” said FST 8 Surgical Technician and Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Andrew Bouges. “There’s no guarantee of what’s going to be happening or where the operation is going to be, so having a casualty-retrieving treatment ship right off the coast in the area is a godsend for troops who are injured.”
With the deployment finally kicking off, Cann feels that FST 8 is able to operate as a high functioning team.
“We are ready,” said Cann. “We got all of our lessons learned and implemented. The team is ready to have that cohesion and now we are ready to conquer anything.”