A week of 'Hit or Miss'

It's been a week of 'hit or miss' as we say when it comes to incoming casualties to the hospital. We had a 36 hour period of calm, then a steady flow of patients, nearly all requiring some form of orthopedic care. Being the only Ortho surgeon here means I respond to nearly every call when casualties come in. This week, one of our 'patients' was a K-9 (German Shepard), who was unfortunately, caught in the blast zone of an IED. Fortunately some of our corpsmen and a veterinarian tech were quickly able to patch him up. It's always hard to see severely injured patients, but it's especially difficult to see children or animals injured or killed. They are truly defenseless in this war, and the prevailing tone around the hospital quickly turns very somber when a child or animal is hurt. The death of a fellow soldier also brings the same sentiment. When a soldier dies, we at TQ Surgical honor him or her by 'Manning the Rails'; the entire company stands at attention along the hallway out of the facility while the fallen Soldier/Sailor/Marine is carried out on a litter draped with the American Flag. We as a surgical team have experienced this and it's sad no matter how many times it happens. Afterwards, however, our team comes together with renewed focus towards the next patient.

Being busy so far, I haven't had many opportunities to see the rest of the base. The history around this base is interesting. Apparently, Saddam and his sons used a sprawling ranch house on Lake Habbinayah before the war for torturing and killing many Iraqis (shia). He also buried numerous MiG 25 and Su 25 Iraqi Air Force fighter jets, presumably from the time of the Gulf War. Many of these have been dug up. The 82nd Airborne first took over this base, but now it's a Marine base, although we have Army integrated among us.

The days seem long here. There have been many times we'll do a case in the morning and by that evening, it will feel like the case happened the day before. Having said that, we are nearly at the one month mark. I was told today that we'd better appreciate the warm weather we've experienced, because it's going to get very, very hot soon.

As far as the surgical cases here are concerned, it's been challenging. Many times I've had to defer to the general surgeons. A patient may come in with a severe extremity injury and I'm ramped up to go in and fix it. However, if the patient has a head injury or is otherwise unstable, I have to just simply put a splint on the extremity and send the patient out to the next level of care. I certainly want to do more, but it's how the system is supposed to work in order free up space for the next round of patients. In that respect, it's much different than civilian trauma care.

The pictures posted include our fearless patient (one with LCDR Neptune).
One picture of the Arabian night.
A tribute to our en-route care nurses, a picture of their Kevlar helmets.
A picture of HN Labindano putting on a splint (I'm working like crazy to train these guys up!)
An x-ray of what happens to your foot, if you're lucky, after an IED blast.
A picture of the 'body bags' we use to keep patients warm during MedEvac transport on the helicopters.