In November, Bernard J. Gilligan III, DNP, CRNA, CHSE, assistant director of the Doctoral Nurse Anesthesia Program, served a two-week deployment to Billings, Montana to assist in the COVID-19 response as a member of the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Trauma-Critical Care Team (TCCT), a division of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS).
The NDMS is a network of federal employees trained to deploy to meet the needs of those impacted by disasters, including public health emergencies. “We are very much ‘team-minded’ as opposed to individual minded,” adds Dr. Gilligan. According to KFF, a nonprofit organization focused on national health issues and the nation’s role in global health policy, examples of past NDMS deployments include Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009 and California wildfires.
Dr. Gilligan joined the TCCT, a federal health care workers group called to assist in the COVID-19 response, to use his experiences as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, flight nurse and critical care nurse “to manage critically ill patients in austere and unfamiliar environments where resources are often limited or changing,” he says. “I value working with a highly skilled team of experts to meet the needs of those in the greatest need of lifesaving intervention.”
Hospitals in Billings service hundreds of miles of Montana, other states and Native American reservations. Dr. Gilligan and his colleagues were assisting with critically ill patients while the area faced its first major wave of COVID-19. A healthcare provider for 30 years and an educator over 20 years, Dr. Gilligan will bring insights from this experience to his teaching in the nurse anesthesia program.
This National Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) Week (Jan 24-30, 2021), Cedar Crest College recognizes Dr. Gilligan for his work in Billings and in our community as the assistant director of the Doctoral Nurse Anesthesia Program.
The Doctorate of Nursing Practice Nurse Anesthesia program is a 36-month full time program designed for the post baccalaureate RN seeking certification in anesthesia and doctoral education. Nurse anesthesia students have the opportunity to learn in a hands-on environment to promote more effective skill development. This curriculum integrates didactic coursework with over 2,000 hours of clinical, ensuring that students administer more than 800 anesthetics to patients undergoing a wide variety of surgical and/or diagnostic procedures.
To learn more about the NDMS’s work in Montana, see the “Billings Gazette” article linked here.