HUANCAVELICA, Peru (AFNS) - A high school physics and chemistry teacher was struck by a second calling about nine years ago: to serve his country as a U.S. Air Force physician.

Today, Capt. (Dr.) James Small wakes up in the remote, mountainous region of Huancavelica, Peru, energized to start a full day of patient care in his new office: an Emergency Medical Support (EMEDS) Health Response Team (HRT) mobile hospital set up in a soccer field nearly 13,500 feet above sea level.

Small, and about 40 of his fellow medical professionals from the 633rd Medical Group from Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., are taking part in New Horizons, a U.S. Southern Command-sponsored annual joint and combined training and humanitarian assistance exercise that takes place throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

In cooperation with the Peruvian government, three weeks ago truckloads of pallets traveled more than 11 hours up winding mountain roads to a dirt soccer field in Huancavelica, where the Air Force team and Peruvian soldiers unloaded the trucks. The U.S. and Peruvian service members worked for nearly 24 hours to unpack the boxes and assemble their contents into a 22-room, 6,300 square-foot, network of medical tents that comprise the EMEDS HRT hospital.

"I was absolutely blown away - it was so impressive--from the moment we reached the compound and we saw the network of tents that were set up," said Maj. Gen. Mark Sears, U.S. Southern Command's deputy commander for mobilization and reserve affairs, who visited the EMEDS HRT site. "And to think of the incredible logistics of how it had to be moved in and set up; then we got inside and saw all of the activities that were going on and the people that they were treating. It was absolutely phenomenal."

In preparation to deploy as part of New Horizons Peru 2012, the EMEDS HRT trained and worked together for about six months. They rehearsed how the EMEDS would be assembled, who would work where and how patients would flow in and out of the facility.

This deployment experience has brought them closer together as a team, Small said.

"We've pulled together, we've bonded, and we've gotten to know one another," he said. "This experience will make us a better hospital back at home station and prepare us to deploy in future contingencies."

The EMEDS HRT is comprised of a variety of light and lean modular, rapid response medical packages that can be used in a myriad of operations such as humanitarian relief, wartime contingencies and disaster response.

Small said that this exercise has renewed his spirit as a physician.

"I think it makes me a better person to see the world from a different perspective - it makes me a better doctor, gives me a compassion and understanding for the human side of medicine."

As the EMEDS HRT mobile hospital was finally set up in the soccer field in Huancavelica, a little more than two weeks ago, a buzz ignited in the community, and people began lining up for appointments to receive care in one of the five specialties the EMEDS HRT offers: pediatrics, internal medicine, family medicine, gynecology, and dental.

Small described the Peruvians who gather to wait in the middle of the night in the freezing temperatures as "cheerful" and "truly grateful" for the opportunity to receive medical care as they make their way into his clinic.

"The patients have only met you for a minute, yet they fully give you their trust," Small said. "I've been reminded throughout this experience that there's a true element of trust that is the doctor-patient relationship."