In celebration of K9 Veteran’s Day, March 13, the Veterinary Trauma Readiness and Operational Medicine Agility (Vet-TROMA) program has been launched by the U.S. Army Office of the Surgeon General and the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps.
This pioneering program establishes a military-civilian partnership, with BluePearl specialists offering specialty and emergency veterinary training to the U.S. Army veterinarians, and requires a completion of 67 hours of distance learning, followed by a three-week clinical rotation. The aim is to bolster their capacity in treating combat casualties among military working dogs (MWDs).
“U.S. Army veterinary teams are often faced with trauma situations in which split-second,life-or-death decisions must be made,” says Richard Stone, DVM, DACVIM (SAIM), chief medical officer at BluePearl. “The advanced training offered through Vet-TROMA helps create more skilled and confident veterinarians—qualities that are necessary to care for canines in combat.”
The U.S. Army Veterinary Corps provides medical and surgical care to more than 1,600 MWDs on active duty that deploy and can be injured. Vet-TROMA is an additional training experience available for U.S. Army veterinary personnel to help prepare them to provide lifesaving care to MWDs at their time of greatest need.
Capt. Abbey Calvo, formally a veterinary team leader from the 218th Medical Detachment (Veterinary Service Support), and the first veterinary corps officer to complete the Vet-TROMA clinical rotation, saw 105 emergency cases during the onsite immersion. Cases she saw included a dog with a gunshot wound to the chest, acute toxicities, and patients requiring blood transfusions—risks MWDs are exposed to on the battlefield.
“Military working dogs are an irreplaceable asset to our military and loyally work to protect our service members, so I need to be prepared to save them if they get injured or become ill on the battlefield,” says Calvo. “The training I received from BluePearl through the Vet-TROMA program was life-changing for me and the dogs I serve, giving me additional tools I need to ensure I am ready to assist our canine counterparts when they need me most.”
Vet-TROMA is currently offered in two BluePearl hospitals near U.S. Army facilities in Lakewood, WA and Cary, NC.