If you were
paying attention to the news about the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City you
will remember that two Army field hospitals deployed to provide support to the
beleaguered health system. Today’s guest is LTC Jarrod McGee, commander of the
11th Field Hospital. In this podcast we discuss what a field
hospital is, what its capabilities are, and what it’s like to move one from Ft.
Hood, Texas to New York City with only a few days’ notice. This interview
focuses mostly on the logistics of the movement to give listeners a sense of
what it takes to accomplish something this complex and make it look easy.
In the full length version of the interview we follow the discussion of the 11th Field Hospital’s mission with a discussion of LTC McGee’s career – he started out in the Army as a combat engineer “running around the woods and blowing things up” to later getting a commission as an Army Medical Service Corps officer and becoming a health services comptroller, so he has had a varied and interesting career. He is also the Army Regent for the American College of Healthcare Executives, so we talk about the importance of professional organizations, and how his ACHE contacts actually helped provide intelligence as he brought his unit into New York. We conclude with a discussion about leadership.
