Taking Care of People; Altus AFB celebrates Nurses Week

  • Published
  • By A1C Jackson N Haddon
They take care of the sick and wounded, sometimes staying with patients in their last moments. They provide a wide range of care and work as a team to save lives all across the globe. Not only are they vital during contingency operations, but they also do a lot at home stations to take care of Airmen and their Families. Nurses handle all sorts of medical tasks and Altus Air Force Base is taking a week to thank them for their service.

National Nurses Week is celebrated on the week of May 6 and was first celebrated in 1954. More than 30 Nurses and Technicians work on Altus AFB, seeing more than 400 patients per week ranging from military members to family and veterans alike.

“National Nurses Week is a time to recognize nurses and technicians throughout the world for all the work they do,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Shaun Westphal, 97th Medical Operations Squadron flight commander of flight medicine and aerospace operational medical clinics. “The Air Force recognizes nurses and technicians together in this week. The nurses and technicians work very closely together and the functions we do depend on each other.”

The decision to celebrate nurses and nurse technicians during National Nurses Week was made by the Air Force to highlight the importance of working together as a team.

“We value the team in the military,” said U.S. Maj. Christopher Nidell, 97th MDOS flight commander of primary care. “You can’t do this job without being a team. You look at this job and see that Nursing has a proud tradition, but we can’t do everything. The team approach is part of what makes us the world’s greatest military.”

Military nurses handle a lot and their importance to the Air Force and its mission cannot be understated.

“One thing that the Air Force has very proudly talked about is that our survivability rate is the highest it’s ever been,” said Nidell. “We have rates going back a number of years but, right now we’re at 98% saved from battlefield injury to a higher field of care. Our men and women that get injured in battle are surviving. That’s something we couldn’t do if nurses and technicians didn’t work as a team.”

Working as a team is important, but so is a drive for working hard and taking care of people. Some nurses choose the career because something motivated them from their past.

“I decided I wanted to become a nurse when I was a sophomore in high school,” said Westphal. “I had a grandparent who’d gotten sick and I saw the efforts that the staff in the hospital had provided. I felt like if I could give that back, that it would be a debt repaid.”

Becoming an Air Force Nurse can mean taking care of patients in the air and on the ground. Whether in a clinic, a full hospital or intensive care; military nurses work hard to take care of people. National Nurses Week is about taking a moment to thank nurses for all the care they’ve given to all their patients.


Nurses are important to the Air Force, allowing it the capability to take care of Airmen at home station and in a deployed or combat environment. That crucial ability to take care of its Airmen is celebrated by the Air Force during National Nurses Week here on Altus AFB.