Highlights
- •Through the lessons learned while caring for combat causalities during two-theater wars, major advances in trauma care, critical care air transport, and healthcare operations resulted in unprecedented combat survival rates.
- •Nursing's value is as a clinical discipline and must be grounded in the best evidence-based nursing care during times of peace, disaster, or war.
- •Air Force nurses are involved every day in humanitarian missions, disaster response, and advancing nursing education within the United States and throughout the global communities.
Abstract
Recorded history allows us to recognize our past and can contribute to the present
and future nursing practice. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of
the United States Air Force Nursing Executive leadership on military health care transformation,
through Major General (Retired) Melissa A. Rank's personal stories and experiences.
This study explores the development and impact of Air Force nursing in its historical,
social, and global context between the years of 2004–2008. The oral history method
was used to explore and record the professional life experiences of a great military
nurse leader. The United States Air Force Nurse Corps has contributed to global healthcare
via humanitarian medical support, medical disaster relief, aeromedical patient transport,
development of best practices, advances in technology, education programs, and transformation
in deployed medical care during times of war, peace, and natural disasters.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Nursing OutlookAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Oral history theory.(2nd ed). Routledge, Abingdon: Oxon and New York: NY2016
- (website accessed on March 1)
- (Air Force Medical Service website accessed October 29)
- Creation of the Air Force Medical Service.(Accessed on October 29)
- USAFE Airmen support Med Flag 2006 in Ghana.U.S. Air Force News website, 2006 (retrieved March 20, 2018 from)
- Reservists provide humanitarian aid in Chad.US Air Force News website, 2004 (Retrieved on March 20, 2018 from)
- Critical care air transport team (CCATT) nurses’ deployed experience.Military Medicine. 2009; 174: 500-508
- Wartime critical care air transport.Military Medicine. 2009; 174: 370-375
- Medical group airmen return from humanitarian mission.U.S. Air Force News website, 2005 (retrieved on March 20, 2018 from)
- Mapping the field of military nursing research 1990-2013: A bibliometric review.International Journal of Nursing Studies. 2015; 52 (1607-1606)
- Symposium unites nurses in the Asia-Pacific region. Official United States Air Force News Website, 2009 (retrieved March 29, 2018 from)
- Aeromedical evacuations from operation iraqi freedom: A descriptive study.Military Medicine. 2005; 170: 521-527
- Nursing leadership in Air Force theater hospitals: The chief nurse requirement [research report].Air War College, Maxwell AFB, AL2008
- Critical care aeromedical teams (Ccatt): Then, now and what's next.The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. 2007; 62: S35https://doi.org/10.0197/TA.0b013e31806540f3
Rank, M. (2006). Department of the Air Force presentation to the committee on appropriations: Subcommittee on Defense United States Senate. Fiscal Year 2007 Medical Program, Statement of Major General Melissa A. Rank, Assistant Air Force Surgeon General for Nursing Services. https://www.airforcemedicine.af.mil/Portals/1/Documents/Congressional%20Testimony/Archives/AFD-070427-008.pdf.
Scannell-Desch, E., & Doherty, M. E. (2010). Experiences of U.S. Military Nurses in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, 2003-2009.
- 10 Advances in medical technology from the global war on terror.Task and Purpose website, 2014 (retrieved on March 20, 2018 from)
- (Accessed on October 29)
- Research findings from the memories of nursing oral history project.British Journal of Nursing. 2017; 26: 210-216
- New horizons brings medical care to 12,414 peruvians.U.S. Air Force News website, 2008 (retrieved on October 17, 2018 from)
- Starting from scratch: Training nurses in Afghanistan.The American Journal of Nursing. 2011; 11: 62-63https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NAJ.0000393063.60890
- Afghanistan war 2001-2014.Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018 (Last updated Feb 21, 2018, retrieved on March 20, 2018 from)
Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 27, 2018
Accepted:
November 25,
2018
Received in revised form:
October 29,
2018
Received:
June 27,
2018
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
