Navy Medicine Training Center is latest step in consolidation

All Hands, April, 2008 by Larry Coffey

The largest consolidation of service training in DOD history recently moved a step closer to completion with the commissioning of the Navy Medicine Training Center (NMTC) at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

NMTC will support inter-service education and training as the Navy service element command for the tri-service enlisted Medical Education Training Campus (METC), scheduled to open between 2010 and 2011.

"We are committed to one integrated inter-service education and training system that leverages the assets of all DOD health-care practitioners," said Vice Adm. Adam M. Robinson Jr., Surgeon General of the Navy and the METC commissioning ceremony guest speaker. "We must continue to build on our previous successes. This is the right thing to do."

Capt. Greg Craigmiles, NMTC commanding officer, also addressed the need for change.

"We live in turbulent times, and never before has response to change been more important," Craigmiles said during the ceremony. "The movement and co-location of all tri-service medical training to Fort Sam Houston will be a huge undertaking during the next three years, and we will be working shoulder to shoulder with our Army and Air Force colleagues to prepare Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen to save lives and take care of people."

The majority of existing Navy enlisted medical education training programs is scheduled to move to San Antonio as part of the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) initiative, said Cmdr. Chris Garcia from the tri-service METC Transformation and Integration Office. The BRAC requires Navy and Air Force medical enlisted training courses relocate to Fort Sam Houston.

Commands moving include the Naval School of Health Sciences (NSHS) San Diego; NSHS Portsmouth, Va.; and the Naval Hospital Corps School (NHCS) Great Lakes, Ill. Army and Air Force programs moving here include the Army's histopathology training program at the Armed Forces Institute at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C.; and the Air Force's 82nd Training Group at Sheppard Air Force Base, Wichita Falls, Texas.

The first Navy students are scheduled to begin training in the new facilities in May 2010. Garcia said the target date for all Navy students to train at Ft. Sam Houston is prior to Sept. 15, 2011, the BRAC deadline. The student load will phase-in as the new facilities are completed.

The average daily student load will be about 9,000 Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen in 2011 when the integration is complete, Garcia said, making METC the world's largest military medical education and training institution. Of the 9,000 enlisted students, approximately one-third-2,900-are expected to be Navy. The Army average daily student load is expected to be about 4,900, and the Air Force about 1,200.

There will be five new instructional facilities ranging in size from 50,000 to 245,000 square feet, with the largest being the new facility housing the hospital corps program. NMTC and the Air Force service element will be housed together in a new two-story building with NMTC occupying the first floor that includes a traditional Navy quarterdeck. There will be three new dormitories constructed--two for Navy students and one for Air Force--and a new dining facility is being built.

Garcia said a variety of the courses will be taught in an integrated environment, with members of all three services attending. There will also be service-unique classes.

Craigmiles pointed out that U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing the lowest battle mortality and disease non-battle injury rates in history, due in large part to exceptional military medical personnel and their training.

"The training we deliver to our corpsmen and medics will save lives on the battlefield," he said. "Therefore, we must continue to provide the best possible support to our Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen in all aspects of their training and development."

Story by Larry Coffey, Navy Medicine Support Command, Fort Sam Houston, Texas.