“We’re still not back to strength,” said Thomas S. Wells, director of the 711th Human Performance Wing, which oversees the school. “We’re only about 80 percent manned at the school.”
The medical training, research and epidemiological lab testing center relocated from Brooks City-Base, Texas, in San Antonio to Wright-Patterson as part of BRAC.
Along with more civilian staff, Wells said the school needs about 50 more military officers to fill vacancies in career fields such as flight surgery.
“The school brought a whole new set of skills to Wright-Patt,” he said.
Last year, workers finished $332 million in BRAC-related construction at the base. The work included the School of Aerospace Medicine, part of a 10-building, 700,000-square-foot complex occupied by the 711th Human Performance Wing.
The aerospace medicine school has 612 military and civilian staffers, but is authorized for 730, he said.
Students are trained in courses ranging from public health apprenticeships to bioenvironmental engineering.
Farhad Sahiar, director of the Division of Aerospace Medicine at Wright State University, said with the Air Force training more pilots to operate unmanned aerial vehicles than manned aircraft, the excitement of being a flight surgeon working with flight crews may have “dissipated” for some.
Multiple deployments to the Middle East also may bring difficulty in filling ranks, he said, and some doctors who settled with their families in San Antonio may have chosen to stay there.
Wright State, though, has quadrupled students enrolled in its flight surgery ranks in Dayton.
The residency studies program will train 20 students, the largest class in two decades, Sahiar said.
Thirteen of the students are from overseas and sponsored by their home countries, where they will return to practice aerospace medicine, he said.
Wright State also trains flight surgeons for NASA and the Air Force. In a typical year, about five students are enrolled, he said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2363 or bbarber@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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