193rd SOMDG wins ANGMS Outstanding Medical Readiness Team Award

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. -- The 193rd Special Operations Medical Group, Middletown, Pennsylvania, recently earned the Air National Guard Medical Service Outstanding Medical Readiness Team Award.

The 193rd SOMDG competed for this award against 89 other ANG medical groups in the country. The group was recognized for its accomplishments in fiscal year Oct. 1, 2013, through Sept. 30, 2014.

Nomination for the award is determined by submitting 20 of the medical team's accomplishments for that fiscal year, said Lt. Col. Kevin Hinkle, chief of medical operations at the 193rd SOMDG.

A few recent accomplishments include initiating monthly face-to-face commander conferences resulting in an increased wing medical readiness of 87 percent, and effectively managing more than 750 personnel in the Occupational Health program, to include many on flying status. Also, the team redesigned the Service Member Profile Management Program and helped deploying personnel process, meeting 100 percent medical readiness.

"You're taking the team's most important accomplishments in a year's time and fitting them into 20 bullet points," said Hinkle. "It's essentially providing the meat to quantify why you're worthy of the award."

It's great that we won the award. There are a lot of different people who come together to complete the mission that we have here, said Senior Airman Stuart Redcay, 193rd SOMDG Aerospace Medical Technician.

Considering that we're primarily a part-time workforce, we take pride in the fact that we work so hard to support three robust mission sets.

The 193rd SOMDG won the ANGMS Outstanding Medical Readiness Team Award once before in 2009 when it was called the Thomas C. Marrs Award.

"I think that winning this award twice in five years tells a lot of people a lot of things about this team, we do the job all the time," said Hinkle. "We have to work beyond a normal drill weekend to be able to do what we can do; it's a very hard job."