AANGFS General Membership Meeting:
1200--15 May, 2004
Keystone, Colorado
Notes from AANGFS Secretary, Col Pond
MGen Gerry Harmon gave words of encouragement to the Alliance Members and
requested member applications. (Very successful)
Meeting was convened by ranking officer, Secretary William Pond
Thanks to Clee Lloyd for slate. Thanks to Reid Muller and Ralph Warren for organizing
the meeting.
No additional nominations
AFRIC Program, members would like to hear about it earlier and attend
Reserves course is very clinically oriented, but not on Aeromedical topics.
Mark Gaul, SGO would like to bring the flight surgeons, bees and PH together.
Is asking for locations. TAOS puts on the program, but only Guard only gets 6 slots.
Col Falk comments that this meeting is what the Guard needs. Will have a formal
opportunity to say goodbye to Brian Pinkston. (Dr. Evil found in Hawaii eating
fermented pineapples) Successor will be Major Ken Eggerstrom? Randy Falk says stop
by Washington and talk. A doctor-less unit is like a shell-less egg. Second 0-6 position.
Now 88 Medical Groups, have been approved at all levels. Thanks Ken Franklin and
Kelly Gunson. Now have parity. A Command and Control function. A full time officer.
Manpower study has been completed. A full time officer will not be funded. BEE and
Public Health will be pulled back into the clinic. Associate Health Techs as IDMT to
give shots during the week.
Suggestion to have Guard Bureau drill on Weekend. Best to use e-mail for
communication.
Dr. Pinkston and Gaul are available on Blackberry.
Recruiting for physicians and bonuses. Short in critical care medicine. DoD owns the
money and it’s parceled out if less than 70% manned, so Army got bonuses, but not Air
Force. Don’t need a board certified trauma surgeon on the front line, but can train for
the minimum criteria. PA’s will be substituted into cardio respiratory slot.
Why so long to get docs in the system? Problem has been fixed. SAS can do the
privileging. Recruiters do not want to get docs on board because of too much work.
Creativity in how to simulate interest in maintaining bases to prevent BRAC so days are
being spread over numerous projects.
Flight surgeons want to fly and can fly for points only. Any flight surgeon can fly for
RUTA and SUTA or points only. Covered if flying for points only on orders. Incentive
being done by rain bowing.
Comment: Chris Flynn. This has been a good nuts and bolts meeting. Need to partner
with local emergency authorities for homeland defense such as decontamination.
Need to have people who can deploy for 90 days.
For volunteers for longer time commitments, talk to Kelly Gun son and Ken Franklin.
Kirk Martin thanked Col Falk for his visionary approach and commitment.
Executive committee to convene this week.
Objective to re-energize the Alliance by concentrating on value added educational
aspects.
Recruiting and retention must be a priority.
The Alliance is the collective voice to bring issues forward. Should continue to work
with other like minded groups.
Reid Muller. Dana Rawls condo 1307 social hour at 1730.
Alliance does publish a flight surgeons guide with a lot of publications. To order fill out
the form on the website.
Letter regarding the 60 day flying rule. Will go to SGXO. Will be absolutely clear.
Mark Gaul commended for putting on such an excellent program. Should be done so that
all Revs can be accomplished. Will be placed on CD. Jim Hennessey. Brooks’s website
has all the AMP lectures.
Would like to see younger members also attend—probably will happen if required topics
are covered. Need to cover topics from a clinical experience side.
Like central location such as Keystone. Do not have the distraction of AsMA. This
meeting separated. Do not have the cutting edge information.
AANGFS Officers, Board of Governors and Interested Parties
1800 May 17, 2004
Timbers Lodge, Keystone, Colorado
Thanks to Vicky and Kirk Martin for hosting the evening.
Thanks to AANGFS Secretary, Col William Pond.
Attendees:
Col Milton Mutchnick: mmutchnick@med.wayne.edu
MGen Gerry Harmon: gamecockmd@aol.com
Col Chip Riggins: chipriggins@pol.net
Lt Col Louis Perino: louisperino@compuserve.com
Lt Col Mark Gaul: mark.gaul@ang.af.mil
Lt Col Ralph Warren: rwarren76@post-harvard.edu
BGen Ray Webster: rwebstermd@aol.com
Col Reid Muller: reidmuller@sprintmail.com
Col Michael Brothers: brothers@accesscom.net
Lt Col Eric Kendle: beeperf16@juno.com
Maj Brian Pinkston: tbpink@aol.com
Col William J Walters: wwaltersmd@juno.com
Maj Paul K. Miller: paul.miller@cobuck.ang.af.mil
Col Jim Chow: chowjc@aol.com
Col William Pond: wwpond@aol.com
Recruiting and Retention:
Recruiters should be given more incentive to recruit docs. Air surgeon will decide how
much credit will be given for a doc versus a new recruiter. Many recruiters do not
understand the benefits for bonuses for docs. Harmon: will put together a package for the
incentives available. Incentives change each year. Should have a workshop at HSM
regarding recruiting and retention. Done at the SAS meeting. Doctors recruit doctors.
Should be done each year. Would like get those recently off active duty. Brian Pinkston
mentioned that some flight docs may want to do contract work. Not a good idea. Mike
Brothers—spoke encouraging flight surgeons to joint. Chip Riggins will be handing out
applications to the AMP class. Eric Kendle: need to show the younger members the
benefits of Alliance membership. SMS Waugh will manage the spreadsheet for ANG
flight surgeons. The RSV is excellent for encouraging membership. Alliance should
have higher visibility. For $25.00 the senior flight surgeon can pay for non members for
the first year. Col Falk is trying to schedule TDY to get Guard Doc to pin on wings on
the new members. Note that there was no fee for the 12.5 hours CME and ACLS cards.
Good Quality programs will cost some money.
Need training for mid level flight surgeons. Not many tubs available so we need to make
it fun. The Top Knife program at Kelly is under revitalization. Issues are being worked
by Clee Lloyd and Chip Riggins and Andy Buzelli. Does Top Knife help recruiting?
How to get tubs available? Security clearance issues with the F-15E. Mike Brothers who
has flown almost 40 years. CCATT have been rewarding and is a growing mission and
we are trying to recruit. Jerry Fenwick says that the CCATT course is the most fun that
he has had. Senior students in medical school can go to the AMP course. They serve in
MSC slots.
What should the Alliance offer its members?
RSV
Newsletters
Camaraderie
Website
CD
CME
Representing the membership
How to guide for waivers
Air War College: Should AWC Jump Start program be transferred to the Guard? Will be
resuscitated at Knoxville and made into a Guard program. AWC in residence is a masters
program.
Feedback Questionnaires: ACLS and RSV were great!! Will use ACLS for experienced
providers last year. ATLS is required for SME and CCATT. Other flight surgeons are
suggested to have course. ATLS as a course could be done as a recertification but at
Bethesda or St. Louis. Lots of good feedback regarding waivers. Lots of interest in
disaster response with more detail along with lessons learned from states that have done
programs. Would like lessons learned from SMEs and deployments. There are 9 RSVs
of which 6 were covered by this meeting. This training may be made available on the
web. May try to get CME as well as RSV credit. The Heart Association allows ACLS
recertification on the web.
HSM for 2005: Would like to continue this conference as a robust educational meeting.
Review MEBs, how to use the portal; strengthen BEE and PH, training for enlisted
personnel. Not much benefit for Alliance to go to AsMA since presentations not much
benefit to members. Meeting at AsMA is for networking for active duty and for research.
At this conference at Keystone, it was very easy to organize. Milt’s first AMSUS was in
1972; he felt that it was interruptive. Could not schedule meetings that conflicted which
then conflicted with the Guard mission. Our own meeting is much better spent with our
own. At this meeting, we are spending all of our Guard issues. Guardsmen are busy and
tasked. They need a course on how to be a good flight surgeon. AMSUS is now the
location for programmatics or “Golden Eggs.” The HSM meeting took 25% of the Guard
O & M. The Jackson Foundation. Motion by Dr. Muller and seconded by Dr. Kendle:
The AANGS will associate with the Readiness Frontiers in 2005 with a preceding
educational program sponsored by the Alliance, open to all ANG flight surgeons.
Approved unanimously. Motion Michael Brothers, seconded by Reid Muller: Cost of the
program next year will be free for members, and all attendees must be members of the
alliance, active for flight surgeons or associate for others.
Funding: Should vendors be charged $200.00 per day? Should we attract donations to the
Alliance Educational issues via the Jackson Foundation? Put up a slide for those
members that supported the meeting—not because it supports Reid’s paperwork. Need
an unrestricted grant to the Alliance. Cannot charge for the CME. Merck and others
should donate to the Henry Jackson. Commanders and SAS should be members of the
Meetings: Will continue to have. Gerry Harmon says that this is a transformational
meeting.
Associate Organizations: AFRFSA spends a week covering their RSVs. No longer
required to be a member of the USAFRS and Society of USAFR and AsMA. Air Force
Reserve lost their 2 star MA to the SG. They had no flight surgeon qualified.
Veterinarian was the assistant to the SG. There are 2--1 star slots for their assistants.
There is a 1 star nurse slot. They are not very robust and had no newsletter until
piggybacked on ours. They have no homeland defense mission. They are flight surgeons
and closer to us than the nurse and MSCs. The reserves may be a recruiting tool for the
Guard.
ICE3: Had some problems this last year. Will not be supported if there is not reliable
guard support. The perception is that it is impossible to get into the program—portrayed
by Buck Dodson. Some bizarre things happened out on the ice? Many people would like
to go, and they must be reliable. Last year we ran through all the alternates. Of all the
qualified people, how do you choose? Need to have at least a 3 week rotation. Can be a
recruiting tool. Place in the newsletter. There is also a cool school
Interesting and fulfilling TDYs left to the discretion of the program committee.
Length of deployments: Any way to keep deployments to 30-45 days. Any way to get
flight surgeons incentive pay?
ANG SG Guardsman: Can the ANG SG position remain as a Guard position? Evil is
active duty but Guard in heart. Slot belongs to General Taylor, the SG of the Guard.
Could easily be an active duty flight surgeon such as Jim Daugherty. Looking at a small
pool of talent such as Chip Riggins. Lucky to have qualified Guards to fill it. No
question that we are better served by a Guard SG. Gen Taylor looks as this as a good
opportunity to train a senior leader. Previously, a retiring O-6 was placed in the position,
but that was not good. Better to have an aspiring leader. Need to touch the limited pool
of senior leaders. Next director of the Air Guard may be General McKinley who will
decide the next ANG SG. We can only afford the relevant. Be accessible.
CHEER Program: Only way to fund is through a hold back from the medical squadrons.
Excellent, productive meeting—adjourned.