LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas—Tech. Sgt. Michele Lazurka, 47th Medical Operations Squadron flight medicine office manager, was chosen by wing leadership to be the “XLer” of the week, for the week of July 8, 2019, at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas.
The “XLer” award, presented by Col. Todd Dyer, 47th Flying Training Wing vice commander, and Chief Master Sgt. Brian Lewis, 47th Operations Group superintendent, is given to those who consistently make outstanding contributions to their unit and the Laughlin mission.
Lazurka also took the opportunity to lead access to care for five clinics. For this, she steered 45 schedule modifications and facilitated 480 appointments which reduced use of the urgent care center by 18 percent.
“Family Health, Women’s Health, Pediatrics, and Behavioral Health rely on me to manage modifications to their schedules and assuring access is adequate to meet the needs of our population,” Lazurka said.
She also helped maximize the base operation medical cell availability. BOMC centralizes all readiness exam components in one clinic. Her role was rebuilding the clinic schedule and expediting 70 priority physical health assessment and deployment-related health assessments. Her hand in BOMC renovations boosted the individual medical readiness 91 percent and took them to number one in Air Education and Training Command.
“Using these standardized procedures to accomplish annual readiness requirements has proven especially valuable at MTFs with high volumes of aerospace medicine services, like Laughlin,” she said.
Lazurka hosted the first “Finally Friday” trivia night, developing the event by compiling the questions, gathering 12 teams—58 attendees altogether. The event raised $245 to support the Wing’s 5/6 club, which is Laughlin’s tech. and staff sergeants’ club.
“We’ve done two trivia nights thus far as fundraisers for Wing’s 5/6, Club, which has served as successful events that raised money for both the Staff Sgt. and Tech. Sgt. release party,” she said.
Leadership awarded Lazurka the “XLer” of the week for her hard work in the clinic and hours spent adding to the success of the Wing’s 5/6 club.