U.S. Navy and UCI medical teams collaborate on trauma training

by Expeditionary Strike Group

26 June 2024 Representatives from Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet and University of California, Irvine signed a memorandum of understanding June 26 focused on transformative military-civilian trauma training and knowledge exchange.

The partnership will allow West Coast-based fleet surgical teams to train at UCI Medical Center’s level 1 trauma center, providing them hands-on experience ahead of deployment.

“This experience fosters continuous knowledge exchange and skill improvement between the Navy’s expeditionary medical teams and UC Irvine staff, in one of the region’s busiest trauma centers with a long history of military partnership,” said U.S. Navy Capt. John Steely, Commander, force surgeon for Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. “Working alongside the talented and experienced trauma teams at UCI Medical Center makes our fleet surgical teams more proficient, ensuring the health and well-being of our U.S. Sailors and Marines.”

The program allows for fleet surgical teams to attend four individual weeks of trauma and burn training at UC Irvine as part of their deployment workups. UCI Medical Center is the flagship hospital for the UCI Health system and the UC Irvine School of Medicine.

The memorandum of understanding builds upon a long history between the U.S. military and the university. UC Irvine has a military-civilian partnership with a Navy trauma surgeon currently assigned at the hospital and many U.S. Navy general surgeons seek fellowship in trauma certification through that facility due to that relationship.

The mission of a fleet surgical team is to deploy with medical and surgical capabilities in support of amphibious ready groups and contingency operations. A team is comprised of medical and surgical professionals with mission critical specializations designed to supplement a ship’s medical department with medical specialists.

"With this training opportunity, our fleet surgical teams are maintaining the same readiness we require of all our shipboard teams- whether that is engineering, damage control, or intelligence,” said Cmdr. Anne Pruitt, the officer in charge of Surface Medical Group Pacific and the surgeon for Expeditionary Strike Group 3. “We look to provide the same transparent certification process for these medical teams moving forward, and this is the first step in that direction."

Expeditionary Strike Group 3 oversees the employment of Fleet Surgical Teams 1, 3, 5, and 9.

Expeditionary Strike Group 3 is postured in support of U.S. 3rd Fleet as a globally responsive and scalable naval command element, capable of generating, deploying, and employing naval forces and formations for crisis and contingency response, forward presence, and major combat operations focusing on amphibious operations, humanitarian and disaster relief, and expeditionary logistics.