page_title: 59th Medical Wing
section_title: Lackland Air Force Base medical unit
hierarchical_section_title: 59th Medical Wing / History / Lackland Air Force Base medical unit
caption_attribution_description: On April 9, 1959, NASA introduced its first astronaut class, the Mercury 7. Front row, left to right: Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Donald K. "Deke" Slayton, John H. Glenn, Jr., and M. Scott Carpenter; back row, Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.
context_page_description: The 59th Medical Wing is the U.S. Air Force's largest medical wing and is the Air Force functional medical command for Joint Base San Antonio. It comprises seven medical groups across San Antonio. Three are located at the Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center; the 959th Medical Group is located at San Antonio Military Medical Center, JBSA-Fort Sam Houston; the 59th Training Group - the wing's newest group, activated on 4 January 2016, is also located at JBSA-Fort Sam Houston. The 359th and 559th Medical Groups are located at and support the missions of JBSA-Randolph and JBSA-Lackland, respectively.
  The 59th MDW operates with a $271 million budget, and a staff of 8,000 military, civilian, and contract personnel. The 59th MDW is home to the Critical Care Air Transport Team Pilot Unit, which has executive management over 118 active-duty, Guard and Reserve teams. The wing also has the Defense Department's largest Blood Donor Center, a Warfighter Refractive Surgery Center, and Extracorporeal Life Support capability.
context_section_description: During the Korean War, the 3700th Medical Squadron developed a program to train basic trainees as medical corpsmen to ease shortage of medical personnel. Wilford Hall Medical Center as most people know it today came about during this time. With many Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines returning from the conflict needing medical attention, plans were drawn up to construct a new and larger medical facility which opened in 1957. It was in this first facility, most of which remains today, that the hospital participated in the first of what would become a long list of highlights of medicine, providing medical support to NASA's project Mercury.
  From 1983, Wilford Hall offered centralized outpatient care, a clinical investigation facility, the Air Force's largest dispensary system, and the only eye bank and organ transplant centers. The hospital accomplished important research work in neonatal medicine, surgical transplants, orthopedic surgery, rheumatology, immunology, and maxillofacial surgery. Clinical investigations research kept the wing at the forefront of development of high-frequency ventilation and extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation; new techniques for the care of premature infants; improved cancer treatments; bone banking and transplantation; laser photocoagulation; and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). In December 1989, it provided medical support to casualties returning from operations in Panama. From 4 January to 21 March 1991 Wilford Hall deployed over 900 personnel to RAF Little Rissington, England, to establish a 1500-bed hospital in support of expected casualties from the Gulf War. In 1993 the Medical Center was redesignated the 59th Medical Wing, taking the lineage of the never-active 59th Tactical Fighter Wing.
caption: The Mercury Seven in 1960.
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