Even with perfect plans and communication (which never happens) the OCs will ensure things go terribly wrong (which always happens). As I have already noted, there is no way to “win” or “beat” Bushmaster it is the “Kobayashi Maru” of medical exercises (shoutout to “Star Trek” fans). Regardless of prior military experience, life experience or personal toughness, it is hard to go through Bushmaster and not come out changed.
In short, the stress is very real, but the danger is not, and most Bushmaster graduates will admit that the experience results in some level of personal growth and introspection. I admit that I take an unhealthy pleasure in this activity-it is my favorite scenario- but it does provide a means of simulated stress in a safe environment where the students can exercise leadership, and the consequences of their decisions do not impact on life, limb or eyesight. During the mortar attack scenario, for example, I randomly and wantonly destroy their platoon aid station, and I usually (notionally) kill off a few students for good measure and effect. There is always too much to do, and utter chaos often reigns, for the platoon aid station is only a student’s poor decision or miscommunication away at any given moment from things going very wrong.Īs a team leader OC, I have tremendous power to mess with the students as they lead themselves through each scenario. The Bushmaster scenarios are ripped directly from the last 18 years of armed conflict, depicting the challenges of care under fire, interactions with host nation patients and leaders, global health engagement, preventative medicine, military bureaucracy, medical ethics, and so much more against a constant background of beautifully moulaged polytrauma casualties arriving at the battalion aid station entrance. During a typical Bushmaster day, the student platoons will experience four scenario days of compressed activity in a 24-hour cycle, with student leadership roles changing with each scenario day. The OCs are there to observe and evaluate performance only the student platoon leads itself with students rotating through various graded positions to include platoon leader and assistant platoon leader, surgeon, ambulance team leader and medic, preventive medicine and combat stress control. Operation Bushmaster defines the USU graduate as something unique and special in American medicine.įor years now, I have served as a platoon team leader, responsible for coordinating the Bushmaster faculty observer/controller evaluators and guiding the student platoon during the weeklong exercise. The dean, USU School of Medicine, Arthur Kellermann MD, recently related that he was told by a former USU student that he had forgotten much of the of the medical physiology he had learned in medical school, but he recalled every minute of his Bushmaster experience. I have spoken of this activity multiple times in this column, because I believe it is the defining endeavor that embodies everything that is different and special about USU graduates, setting the institution apart from its peer medical education facilities in this country.Īs an alumnus of USU (Class of ’92), I had my own Operation Bushmaster experience and, although the activity back then pales in comparison to the current exercise provided by USU, the lessons I took away from Bushmaster are still with me today. Nobody ever wins Bushmaster you survive it. Bushmaster days are long, extremely stressful, and jampacked with medical disaster. This exercise is the culmination of years of military medicine training where the students practice Role 1 field medicine in a simulated combat environment.
October is Operation Bushmaster (season for Uniformed Services University (USU) medical and nursing students.
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