Navy doctors get hand-on training at LAC+USC Medical Center

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The LAC+USC Medical Center emergency department sees about 4,500 trauma cases a year, making it one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation.

The U.S. Navy sends hundreds of people to the medical center every year because the real-life emergencies help the military prepare for the battlefield.

Inside the old County General ER, a mass casualty simulation almost feels like the real thing to hospital Corpsman Alexander Ploth.

"It can be pretty high pressure," Ploth said.

The next stop? Treating live patients in LAC+USC's emergency department.

"They get hands-on patients for stab wounds, gunshot wounds, motor vehicle accidents," Ploth said. "You can't pretend. You really have to get hands on."

"There are few places out there where the Navy can get this kind of experience without being in a combat environment," said Cmdr. Mike Kearns, director of the Navy Trauma Training Center.

After Operation Desert Storm, the Government Accountability Office recognized the need to get better care to casualties on the field. Since 2002, the Navy Trauma Training Center has called the USC Health campus its home.

"Without their help and without their willingness to bring us in and be part of their training, this program wouldn't be what it is," Kearns said.

Naval doctors, along with civilian counterparts, train doctors, nurses and medics. In return, military personnel deliver care to local patients.

For three weeks, students move from the classroom to high-stress simulations, then into the unpredictable ER.

Many of these students will get deployed to places where they'll have to save lives without the use of high-tech equipment.