Free Republic

7/26/2006 - SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) -- Seth and Stephanie Parker held each other's hands and waited. As the plane touched down at 12:05 a.m. July 22 at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, they smiled at each other and looked at their son. Four-day-old Stuart lay across from his parents on a medical cart surrounded by doctors, nurses and medical technicians. He was the newest patient for the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, or ECMO, team that was double- and triple-checking everything to ensure he was ready for the next leg of his journey. Shortly after his birth, doctors told the Parkers that...

WASHINGTON, May 13, 2005 – Defense officials have used the base realignment and closure process to transform the way military medicine operates. Medical facilities will become more joint, they will consolidate where patients reside and they will become state-of-the-art. "We want to rival Johns Hopkins or the Mayo Clinics," said Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant defense secretary for health affairs. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld delivered his recommendations for base realignment and closure to the BRAC Commission today. The medical recommendations are part of this process. The recommendations mean changes to military medicine in the nation's capital and San Antonio,...