85 Hospital Corpsmen are backbone of clinic staff

Pg. 4

Immunization

Nurse

Specialist

Stephen Dolak

recognized

with award

Lovell

Legends win

15 medals at

Veterans

Wheelchair

Games

Pg. 4 Pg. 2

September 2011 Official Newsletter of the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center Vol. 3, Iss. 9

USS Tranquillity mission:

Get recruits to the fleet

In This Issue...

A fter the hectic days of in-processing, U.S. Navy recruits have

many long, difficult days ahead of them before they graduate.

Intense physical training can lead to sports injuries. Viruses

spread quickly in close quarters. Some need in-depth physicals for their

chosen specialties. And other recruits just need a little help when sleep

deprivation and stress take their toll.

For all those reasons and more, hundreds of recruits a week visit USS

Tranquillity, one of four Branch Medical Clinics that are part of the

Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center.

“We’re taking care of recruits no matter what’s going on,” said Chief

Hospital Corpsman Juan Johnson, the senior enlisted advisor at the

clinic, which is on the grounds of Recruit Training Command (RTC) in

North Chicago, Ill. “And we’re getting them out into the fleet.”

The close-knit staff of 140 active duty Navy personnel and civilian

employees are proud to work at USS Tranquillity, where the main floor

halls are named after the Navy values of Honor, Courage and

Commitment, and the Special Physicals section is called “Team Valor.”

The backbone of the staff is its 85 Navy Hospital Corpsmen, Johnson

said. They are enlisted medical specialists who are cross-trained to

perform a number of duties, from Honor Team members “stuffing

records” in the medical records verification section to medical

assistants taking vital signs in the treatment room. Corpsmen even

work in the supply room.

(Continued on page 3)

Continuing

Promise

deployment

ends for

Lovell FHCC

Sailors

By Jayna Legg

Lovell FHCC Public Affairs

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Christopher Scarce (left) and Hospital Corpsman 3rd

Class Joshua Buttler are on the “Honor Team,” the section that verifies medical

records at USS Tranquillity. (All photos by Jayna Legg)

Hospitalman Daniel Anderson, Physical Therapy Technician, monitors a recuperating

recruit’s workout in Sports Medicine and Rehabilitative Therapy. In addition to

visiting SMART, injured and ill recruits receive mental health care and go to sick call

at USS Tranquillity and its three clinics in the barracks at Recruit Training

Command. Special physicals for flight crew members, rescue swimmers, divers and

other sailors going into Special Warfare also are provided at USS Tranquillity.

swimming, 9-ball pool and other

events.

“I am especially proud of the

team spirit and camaraderie,

which was remarkable,” Fleming

said. “When some of our team

members were not in an event,

they came out to team members’

competition to cheer them on and

support each other.”

The trip included a block party

for the Veterans, their families

and coaches at Heinz Field, home

of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The

Legends also had the chance to

see the Chicago Cubs play the

Pittsburgh Pirates, and as a

bonus, “the Cubs swept the

series,” Fleming said.

In total, the Lovell Legends

brought home 15 medals. Steve

Aoyagi of Des Plaines, Ill., took

gold in table tennis and motor

rally. Karen Van Benschoten,

from Racine, Wis., took gold in

the slalom, motor rally, 9-ball

pool and Power 200, and silver in

table tennis. Ramon Calderon,

Waukegan, Ill., won silver in

weightlifting and bronze in

basketball. Dan Dorsch,

Evanston, Ill., won gold in

swimming. Nate Davenport, a

resident of the Community

Living Center, took the gold in

the Power 200 and silver in

Power Soccer. Gary Garland, also

a FHCC CLC resident, won

bronze in the Power 200 and

silver in the motor rally. David

Wells, Gurnee, Ill., won a silver

medal in softball.

W hat an amazing year we’ve had.

As we approach the first

anniversary of the Captain James

A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in

October, I can’t help but reflect on the

astounding strides we have made.

We cut the ribbon for our new medical

surgical ward. We broke ground for our new

Green House Homes. We activated the West

Campus addition and moved out of the Navy

Health Clinic Building 200H. Sept. 1 we cut

the ribbon on the first Caregiver Support

Center and a few days later began

welcoming home our 21 Sailors who

deployed for Operation Continuing Promise on board the USNS

Comfort in Central and South America.

We’ve continued to advance electronic health records integration,

despite many obstacles. We’ve hosted countless VIP visits to promote

the great work we’re doing. We’ve promoted 125 Sailors. We have

plans for a university-quality education center. The list goes on and on.

All of this was accomplished as we brought together the Department of

Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to stand up the first

federal health care center. We restructured, created new services,

integrated more than 500 Policy Instructions, and established the FHCC

as a DOD/VBA/VHA collaboration site providing an Integrated

Disability Evaluation System (IDES).

Under the Lovell FHCC banner, we continued old traditions and started

new ones as we began building a new culture that is the best of the VA

and the Navy. Also, through this August, we’ve cared for more than

4,000 inpatients and had approximately 852,000 patient visits to the

East and West Campus and our Community Based Outpatient Clinics.

These accomplishments don’t just happen. They come about through

the dedication and very hard work of our 3,000 military and civilian

employees, and let’s not forget – more than 1,000 volunteers. From

bringing dogs in for pet therapy, to delivering reading materials to

patients and acting as greeters, volunteers play an integral role.

Our first birthday is not about ribbon-cuttings and new buildings. It is a

celebration of our unity as the diverse military and civilian staff of the

very first health care facility of its kind in the nation. We should all feel

very proud of what we have accomplished. If I haven’t thanked you

personally, I want to say now, on behalf of our patients, thank you for

all you do to ensure we are Readying Warriors and Caring for Heroes.

I look forward to many great things for Lovell FHCC in the coming

year.

Leadership Commentary

It’s been an amazing year of accomplishments: Thank you!

By Patrick L. Sullivan

Lovell FHCC Director

The Apollo

The Apollo is the official newsletter of the

Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health

Care Center. It is published monthly for staff

members, Veterans, military family

members and volunteers.

The newsletter is designed and published at

the Lovell FHCC in the Communications

Department.

3001 Green Bay Rd.

North Chicago, Illinois 60064

224-610-3714

www.lovell.fhcc.va.gov

www.facebook.com/lovellfhcc

www.youtube.com/lovellfhcc

issuu.com/lovellfhcc

Director,

Capt. Lovell Federal Health Care Center

Patrick L. Sullivan, FACHE

Deputy Director,

Capt. Lovell Federal Health Care Center

Capt. David Beardsley, MC, USN

Lovell FHCC Communications

Department Head

Mary Schindler

Public Affairs Officer

Jonathan E. Friedman

Public Affairs Specialist

Jayna M. Legg

Submissions to the publication can be

emailed to lovellfhcc.media@va.gov

Factual Accuracy and Disclaimer:

Accuracy is very important to us and we want

to correct mistakes promptly. If you believe a

factual error has been published, please bring

it to our attention by sending an email to

lovellfhcc.media@va.gov. Use of any social

media product does not imply endorsement on

the part of the Department of Defense or the

Department of Veterans Affairs, and may not be

available from all government servers. Content

on these sites are not edited for accuracy and

may not necessarily reflect the views of the

federal government.

2

Seven Veterans brought home 15 medals from national competition in Pittsburgh

Above, Dan Dorsch, of Evanston, Ill., won a gold medal in swimming. Below, David

Wells, Gurnee, Ill., won a silver medal in softball. (Photos by Karen Fleming)

S porting new shirts and hats

with their new team name,

the seven disabled Veteran

athletes on the Lovell Legends

team swept the competition at the

31st National Veterans

Wheelchair Games in August,

bringing home medals of all three

colors from Pittsburgh.

“I think it was the best games we

have participated in yet,” said

Lovell FHCC Recreation

Therapist Karen Fleming, who

coaches the team along with

Susan Brunner, also a FHCC

Recreation Therapist. “From the

transportation, volunteers, special

events, meals for the athletes,

competition venues, everything

was well-planned and

exceptionally well done!”

FHCC athletes win medals at Wheelchair Games

By Jayna Legg

Lovell FHCC Public Affairs

The Lovell Legends team is made

up of five outpatient Veterans

and two residents of the FHCC’s

Community Living Center.

Lovell athletes participated in

power soccer, softball,

weightlifting, baseball, slalom,

motor rally, table tennis,

USS Tranquillity (cont.)

3

“I think the work here is vital, especially what

we ask of our very junior corpsmen, straight

from Corps School,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr.

Kendra Nowak, who heads USS Tranquillity.

“If we don’t get these recruits taken care of,

from a common cold to getting their medical

records squared away, they can’t get to the

fleet, and the fleet can’t function without more

sailors.”

A fixture at the clinic is “Mr. Brown.” William

Brown, Medical Records Technician, loves his

job. “It’s a great place to work, and what

makes it great is the people,” he said. “They

are just good people.”

Brown, who has been a civil servant for 25

years, the last five at USS Tranquillity, starts

his long commute from Chicago at 4:14 a.m.

every day. After recruits check in at the

Quarterdeck, Brown is “where it all starts,”

Nowak said. At Brown’s desk, the medical

record that will follow a recruit throughout his

or her Navy career begins its journey. Brown

said he handles anywhere from 300 to 400

records a day.

“I just love working with the recruits,” Brown

said.

Nearly 37,000 recruits come through Naval

Station Great Lakes RTC annually, which

results in about 2,750 visits to USS

Tranquillity in the average week, Nowak said.

The main clinic is open seven days a week.

Medical staff also see patients at three sick call

locations in the barracks, which saves recruits

a trip to USS Tranquillity.

“If you can diagnose it with a basic physical

exam or an otoscope, ophthalmoscope,

stethoscope, and vital signs, then they can take

care of it out there,” Nowak said.

The “common cold” is the most frequent

diagnosis, Nowak said, although USS

Tranquillity sees patients for many other

reasons, including those who want to pursue

career fields with more stringent physical

requirements.

Special Physicals include those for flight

crews, rescue swimmers, divers and Special

Warfare jobs, for example SEALs and Special

Warfare Combatant Craft Crewmen. Sailors

who want to serve on submarines also get

Special Physicals.

(Continued from page 1)

More photos @ Facebook.com/LovellFHCC

Hospital Corpsman Elyjah Bennett takes the vital signs

of a patient in the Treatment Room at USS Tranquillity.

(Photo by Jayna Legg)

“Every enlisted person going into those fields in

the Navy passes through here,” said Navy Capt.

Clifton Woodford.

“Our job is to make sure the person can safely go

and do what they want to do,” said Woodford, a

family practice doctor who said his job at USS

Tranquillity is fast-paced and challenging.

The number of Special Physical visits at

Tranquillity is about 260 a week, Nowak said,

which equates to more than 13,000 visits annually.

A steady stream of recruits visits the SMART

section of the clinic – Sports Medicine and

Rehabilitative Therapy. On a recent Friday

morning, the SMART room looked like any

civilian health club – packed with patrons working

out on an array of treadmills, weight machines and

other exercise equipment. The difference was the

number of attentive therapists, who charted

progress on clipboards as they monitored each

sailor’s efforts.

By the treadmills, Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class

Andrew Long worked with a sailor recovering

If you can diagnose it with a

basic physical exam or an

otoscope, ophthalmoscope,

stethoscope and vital signs,

then they can take care of it

out there.”

Lt. Cmdr. Kendra Novak, who heads

USS Tranquillity

Why is “Tranquillity”

spelled that way?

Some may wonder why Tranquillity is

spelled differently. Because the Lovell

FHCC clinic is named after the ship, the

spelling is the same as the official name

of USS Tranquillity (AH-14), a 15,400-

ton Haven class hospital ship that served

on active duty during World War II.

Although USS Tranquillity was only in

use for a year, it’s known for transporting

survivors from the sunken cruiser USS

Indianapolis, from the Palau Islands to

Guam.

On July 11, 1945, the USS Tranquillity

steamed to Ulithi atoll in the Caroline

Islands and became the base hospital ship

for the USS Indianapolis rescue.

The ship had a bed capacity of 802 and a

crew of 568 officers and enlisted sailors.

It was one of the Navy’s first air-

conditioned ships and was equipped with

85,000 cubic feet of medical storage

space and a 100-bed field hospital. When

the war ended, USS Tranquillity brought

hundreds of injured men from the Pacific

back to the United States as part of Op-

eration “Magic Carpet.”

from pneumonia. “We’re getting his chest to

expand back up,” explained Long, a Physical

Therapy Technician.

“Pneumonia makes your chest muscles get

weak. We’re trying to get him back to where

he can do regular physical training,” Long

said.

USS Tranquillity also provides mental health

care to recruits, which encompasses a myriad

of services for many conditions, including

depression and anxiety disorders. That can

mean patients with extensive mental health

treatment histories or recruits who need care

for issues that develop during basic training.

In some cases, “we provide reassurance,”

Nowak said. “Some of them think they are

going crazy because they are sleep-deprived

and stressed. Most of the recruits do make it

through and graduate,” she pointed out.

One mental health focus is Psychological

Resilience Outreach, or PRO, which helps

recruits in medical hold status keep motivated

while they heal.

Also in the mental health section, recruits

waiting to be medically discharged from the

Navy may receive counseling from social

workers.

“Most of them really wanted to be here and

stay in the Navy,” Nowak said, “so there’s a

transition they have to go through when they

are discharged for medical reasons.”

The operations at USS Tranquillity “are a

confusing machine, but a well-oiled one,” said

Nowak, who added that leading the clinic has,

hands-down, been the most challenging job

she has had in her 15 years in the Navy.

William Brown is one of the first faces recruits see when

they come to USS Tranquillity for medical care. Brown,

a 25-year civil servant, is a Medical Records

Technician. (Photo by Jayna Legg)

Kudos Corner

When U.S. Navy and other mili-

tary service personnel at Naval

Station Great Lakes are deployed

overseas, they can thank Immuni-

zation Nurse Specialist Stephen

W. Dolak, for protecting them

against vaccine-preventable dis-

eases that are prevalent worldwide

or endemic to certain lands.

For his initiatives that dramati-

cally improved the immunization

program at Lovell Federal Health

Care Center’s Fisher Branch

Medical Clinic, Dolak earned the

American Nurses Association Im-

munity Award for June.

Since 2008, Dolak has worked as

Immunization Nurse Specialist at

Great Lakes. He has specialized in

identifying problems with vaccine

administration and implementing

changes to improve immunization

rates, efficiency and service stan-

dards.

Dolak’s supervisor, Dr. Gregory

Kaftan, Division Officer of the

FHCC’s occupational health

medicine department, credits him

for bringing “energy to a program

that had languished.

“He has demonstrated clear lead-

ership in promoting comprehen-

sive immunizations programs that

stay in step with the ever-

changing vaccination guidelines

and schedules,” Kaftan said.

Dolak advocated a redesign of the

immunizations facilities that al-

lowed the handling of a larger vol-

ume of patients. His improve-

ments helped increase the compli-

ance rate for tuberculosis skin test

interpretive readings from 60 per-

cent to 95 percent. Dolak also im-

proved the vaccine program to

protect against yellow fever, while

also devising a plan to reduce

waste of multi-dose vials of the

vaccine. Through his monitoring

of the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention’s immunization

recommendations, Dolak imple-

mented a human papillomavirus

(HPV) vaccination program for

males.

Previously, the vac-

cine, which prevents

certain types of cancer

and other illnesses,

had been given only

to female Navy re-

cruits.

“His collaboration

with his colleagues

has greatly improved

the immunization

practice,” Kaftan said.

“The Navy and the

Veterans Administra-

tion are lucky to have

a nurse of his caliber

and energy constantly pushing for

the use of the state-of-the-art

thinking in vaccinations on behalf

of our sailors, retirees, civilians

and active duty personnel.”

4

FHCC Navy team provides medical care in Central America

Immunization Nurse Specialist Stephen Dolak recognized by American Nurses Association

Immunization Nurse Specialist Stephen Dolak specializes

in identifying problems with vaccine administration.

(Photo by Mary Waterman)

Left, Lt. Cmdr. Francine Worthington escorts a patient into the

Escuela Barra de Santiago medical site in El Salvador. (Photo by

Senior Airman Kasey Close) Above right, in Haiti, Lt. Joshua

Fair is assisted by Canadian Army Master Cpl. Joan Flecknell

(Photo by Navy Mass Communication Spc. 1st Class Brian A.

Goyak) Below left, in Costa Rica, HM2 Lester Dixon examines a

patient's teeth. (Photo by Brian Goyak) Below right, Cmdr. Tim

Ackerman explains a procedure to a patient at a medical site in

Barranca, Costa Rica. (Photo by Air Force Staff Sgt. Courtney

Richardson) All photos courtesy of USNS Comfort Public Affairs

Story courtesy of the American

Nurses Association