Maj. Gen. Brannon discusses retention, recruiting during Elmendorf visit

By Airman 1st Class Amy Christopher
3rd Wing Public Affairs

ELEMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska -- With all the technological advances in the Air Force, the challenges of education and training have always been stressed, particularly for medics.

However, the Air Force assistant surgeon general for nursing services, Maj. Gen. Barbara Brannon, visited the 3rd Medical Group nurses here to observe and assess the quality of medical support, as well as to discuss two of the latest nursing corps challenges — retention and recruiting.

The 3rd Medical Group goes above and beyond, according to Brannon during her visit here Sept. 24-26.

“I’ve never seen an Air Force medical facility of this quality. It’s a relatively new building, but I think the design, the functionality, the artwork — just the quality of the environment — is absolutely outstanding.

“As a staff member it would be a joy to work here for patients who probably walk through the door and take a sigh of relief to think ‘I’m in a good place.’”

After meeting some members of the 3rd Medical Group, she said, “I look around and I don’t think I talked to anyone who wasn’t smiling, enthusiastic and had something good to say about Elmendorf,” she said. “Folks here are part of a team; they’re working well together and are always looking for better ways to do things.”

One such initiative is the hospital’s new Open Access program, guaranteeing patients same-day appointments and no wait, which Brannon said “is the wave of the future.”

She also said it’s a model program that the Air Force Surgeon General -- Lt. Gen. (Dr.) George Peach Taylor Jr. -- wants all facilities to do.       

As a representative of more than 19,000 Air Force active-duty, Guard and Reserve nurses, and lead official for all medical force education and training programs, Brannon said that when nurses do their initial training — she’d like to see them do it at the hospital here.

“This hospital isn’t only a great facility to provide care for airmen and their families, but it’s a great training platform for our folks,” she said. “I’d really like to send some brand new Air Force nurses here for their initial training. I think there’s a lot of significant things people can do here — and there is a lot of people on teams here that are very important to the Air Force.”

With Air Force nursing issues of recruitment and retention challenges topping the general’s agenda, she said her number one priority is to improve the current state of the nursing corps.

“There is a terrifically challenging nursing shortage across the United States to include Alaska and Hawaii that has really impacted our ability to bring new nurse corps officers into the Air Force,” she said. “Over the last four years, we’ve been short at least 100 or more nurses every year.”

However, with things in motion to bring in more nurses, Brannon said there’s more good news — Air Force nursing retention is excellent.

“Once we get folks into the Air Force, our nurse corps officers like the quality of life, and they really enjoy being in the military,” she said. “They find that the patient care and the teams that they are able to work on are absolutely outstanding.”

A big part of improving the current nursing corps is also directly affected by its structure and the authorizations the Air Force has for different field grades.

“For our nursing staff, we have a lot of authorizations for our junior nurses (company grade officers), but we don’t have many authorizations that would get up to the field grade rank,” General Brannon said. “The nurses are wonderful, but we sometimes don’t have the leadership and depth of experience.”

She said she’s looking to increase the skill level of the nursing corps.

“I’m working on a review of nursing experience levels and authorizations, and I’m trying to make it better for patients, as well as better for the nurse corps,” she said.

Despite the challenges for nurses, Brannon discussed their recent wartime achievements. “In deployment conditions, our nurses have done a wonderful job in both taking care of the warfighters and protecting them, particularly in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

“We have nurses as technicians embedded in Special Forces teams that are right up there on the front lines, taking care of soldiers, sailors, Marines and our airmen. We’ve saved lives, and we’ve really proven we’re able to meet that wartime mission,” she said.

Air Force nursing is as good as, if not better, than civilian care, she added.

The difference is in the quality of Air Force education and training programs.

“What gives us our strength, compared to civilian nursing, is really the quality of our education and training, and the way we use our enlisted personnel — we allow them to do more, earlier on in their careers.” she said. “I would put the quality of our nurse’s care and our people against civilian care anywhere in the country.”