LTJG Tiffany Bachman Dodson, NC, USNR, BSN '00, came to Villanova's College of Nursing from Pembroke Pines, FL. Upon graduation she spent 3 years working in the intensive care arena in Virginia and California following her husband's Navy career. Once relocated to Florida she decided to pursue her interest in military nursing and graduate education. She was commissioned on June 30, 2003.

After attending Officer Indoctrination School (OIS) in Newport, RI, Dodson reported to Naval Hospital Pensacola. There she is assigned to the ICU with an operational billet attaching her to the Fleet Hospital Pensacola where she participated in an operational readiness field training exercise. Exercises included setting up a field hospital, specifically the "tent hospital" including installation of electrical wiring, air conditioning system, oxygen system and "stuffing" (setting up in all medical furniture, equipment, and consumable supplies). Other structures that she learned to erect were general purpose birthing tents and ISOs (large containers that expand into either an OR suite, radiology or a pharmacy).

Once the building was complete, she took part in a number of classes with focus on readiness training. These included general safety briefings, convoy operations, night vision using special vision goggles, global positioning systems, nuclear-biological-chemical (NBC) warfare gear and types of nerve agents and their antidotes. The training culminated with a mock mass casualty scenario in the Kuwaiti Desert where she took the role of an ICU nurse. In the ICU she was responsible for treating and stabilizing patients who were brought to the unit and then sending them on to the acute care ward or Med-evacuating them back to another facility for continuing care. Overall, she found it was great learning experience. "It truly tested one's nursing skills without the convenience of technological equipment found in the hospital, as well as the ability to be innovative (nurses are notorious for this) and conservative with use of supplies," said Dodson.