BALTIMORE (WJZ)– The University of Maryland Shock Trauma mission to save lives extends to Afghanistan.

Pat Warren reports Physician-In-Chief Dr. Thomas Scalea has returned from a trip to trauma care facilities with new insights into the training military health care professionals get right here in Baltimore.

Where shock and trauma are the norm, medical personnel trained at Shock Trauma Center are on the job.

“Everyplace I went, somebody would come up and say, ‘You trained me and I am better because you guys trained me,’” Scalea said.

And our men and women in uniform are better for it.

“You think about Vietnam, the last sort of big war that used to take two or three weeks,” he said. “Now, it takes two or three days, and so it’s a very, very different look at things.”

Scalea’s field trips may put him in harm’s way, but war is a shared battlefield.

“It was fabulous to see the impact we have had on the care of injured soldiers,” he said.

It’s an impact he hopes to see continue.

Scalea believes the real challenge now will be to maintain that military medical expertise as Americans draw down their presence.

Shock Trauma, in conjunction with the Air Force, has trained more than 3,000 Air Force medical personnel.