In order to ensure a smooth transition once patients are moved from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, a ‘Day in the Life’ exercise was conducted on July 26 at the Bethesda facility.

A feature on the Navy website shared that the goal of the activity was to exercise the capability of the facility to process patients, and ensure that its staff is fully trained, once Walter Reed patients are moved to the hospital.
It provides hospital personnel with hands-on experience on how to deal with various patient scenarios; Tuesday’s exercise kicked off with the case of a 20-year-old mock patient, who complained of abdominal pain.

It was eventually determined that the patient required surgery; the exercise then went on to escort the patient through the standard systems and processes that such a case would go through, including admissions paperwork, radiology, and lab tests. The case then concluded with the admission of the patient into a surgical unit.

Capt. Wanda Richards, Assistant Deputy Commander for BRAC and Nursing Integration at National Naval Medical Center, clarifies, however, that not all admissions are straightforward: “Some of them start in the emergency room department. One starts in the garage where a patient gets out of her car and has some problems, so we had to retrieve her from there.”

The various scenarios included Wounded Warriors, pediatric, and hema-oncology, among others. Each called for trainees to work in the various departments of the medical center, thus providing a robust training experience.