RAAF surgeon leads international medical team at RIMPAC

A RAAF medical officer is filling one of three component surgeon positions, charged with ensuring the care of more than 25,000 personnel participating in Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC).

CAPTION: RAAF Group Captain Glenn Pascoe, Surgeon to the Combined Forces Air Component Command at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Hawaii for Exercise RIMPAC, speaks with medical team members. Story by Lieutenant Carolyn Martin. Photo by Corporal Adam Abela.

Group Captain Glenn Pascoe is surgeon to the Combined Forces Air Component Command (CFACC) at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii.

Group Captain Pascoe is leading a medical team of 13 personnel, which includes three Canadians, one Britt, two New Zealanders and six US medical staff. The team is a combination of full-time and reserve personnel.

“Essentially, our role is to advise command on anything medical within the air component. That could include aeromedical evacuations as well as tracking any medical issues in real-world and exercise scenarios,” Group Captain Pascoe said.

“The team will advise on the care required for any injured or ill members from any nation from location to care, and then ensure their fitness to return to duty or to their home nation.”

Group Captain Pascoe’s CFACC deputy surgeon is Royal Canadian Air Force’s Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Minkley.

Lieutenant Colonel Minkley said the CFACC medical team was made up of the five nations from the ‘Five Eyes’ group of countries – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US – so interoperability agreements already existed for air medical evacuations.

“Five Eyes members are used to working together. What’s nice about RIMPAC is it expands that interoperability training to the 29 nations participating. It gives us the opportunity to work with nations that we haven’t worked closely with in the past, like European countries including Germany and France, as well as many Asian countries,” Lieutenant Colonel Minkley said.

“For example, yesterday one of my evacuation medical teams was on the US Navy aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, working alongside healthcare teams from India and Brunei to expand our joint abilities to care for critically ill patients if required. That is a classic advantage of RIMPAC.”

This is the third RIMPAC exercise for Senior Chief Petty Officer Oliver Arceo, an enlisted hospital corpsman in the US Navy.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Arceo has taken on the role of coach and mentor for most of the team who are participating in RIMAPC for the first time.

“This is a fantastic multi-national crew that we have assembled together from different backgrounds. I’m very happy to be working with them in this exercise and just engaging with every single one of them,” Senior Chief Petty Officer Arceo said.

“We hope to learn how to work cooperatively and be in synch with maritime standards and how we handle situations and scenarios at RIMPAC as a group.”

Group Captain Pascoe said the team would be drawing on their collective experience, including his as Deputy Validating Flight Surgeon in the Combined Air Operations Centre in Iraq during 2003.

“I have faith that the team has the knowledge, experience and willingness to coordinate the health care required to their military friends and colleagues this RIMPAC,” Group Captain Pascoe said.

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