Photo By Sgt. Marshall Thompson | Air Force Maj. Richard Davis, an orthodpedic surgeon with the 332nd Expeditionary...... read more read more
When personnel at the Air Force Theater Hospital (AFTH) hear the medical evacuation helicopters landing outside, they know they have to be ready to treat Americans and Iraqis with severe injuries.
"We take care of all the trauma cases that come through the doors. Sometimes the helicopters seem to be coming non-stop," said Air Force Maj. Richard Davis, an orthopedic surgeon with the 332d Expeditionary Medical Group (EMDG).
"Seventy percent of what we do is taking care of Iraqi police, military and civilians. We even take care of insurgents."
Although the military surgeons and nurses feel more attachment to a wounded American Soldier than to an insurgent, they treat both with the same care and without prejudice.
"It's the nature and severity of the injury that determines who gets treated first, not if they're Iraqi or American," Davis said.
Some think it's strange that an insurgent may get treatment before an American Soldier, but Davis said it's the same principle surgeons use in the United States. For example, if a drunk driver hits a car full of people, but the drunk driver's injuries are more serious, he will get treatment first.
At the AFTH, it's rarely a choice of one patient over another.
"We have enough resources that everyone gets the treatment they need in a timely basis," Davis said.
The hospital is comprised mainly of a series of connected tents. Davis said he was amazed when he arrived in Iraq to find well-trained doctors and nurses using sophisticated equipment to run a fully-functioning hospital in tents.
Airman 1st Class Jeron Lowery, a surgical technician in the 332d EMDG who works with Davis, said that he hopes the treatment they provide to Iraqis at the hospital will help U.S.-Iraq relations in the future.
"It's no different. We treat all people the same, no matter what the situation," Lowery said.
"It makes me feel like I'm helping Iraqis see Americans as something different. We're not trying to hurt them. We're trying to help them out."
Lowery and Davis recently worked together putting a skin graft on the calf of a wounded Iraqi.
The team got to work cutting a thin slice of skin from the man's thigh and placing it over the exposed muscle on his calf.
Davis said he had no idea if the man he was operating on was Iraqi army, Iraqi police, an Iraqi civilian, or an insurgent.
"You see someone with an injury and you know how to fix it," Davis stated. "You just have to separate yourself from the situation and treat the injury."
Davis had another surgery scheduled that day as well, not including the urgent cases from any medical evacuation helicopters that might come in.
Because of the rate of serious injuries, the surgeons become highly experienced in their fields.
"[The injuries] are high energy injuries. You see them occasionally in the U.S. with high speed car wrecks, but it's a common, daily occurrence here," Davis said.
"I've had a high amount of trauma experience. In the past four weeks here in Balad, I've done more amputations from mangled extremities than I did in five years of residency back home."
Army Maj. Jacqueline Allen, the officer-in-charge of the operating room, from the 207th Head and Neck Neurosurgery Team, said that the hospital personnel are "busy, busy, busy."
She agreed with Davis and Lowery that everyone gets equal treatment at the hospital.
She added, however, that it's harder to lose patients when they are American Soldiers.
"I cry sometimes when they die, but that goes with the territory," Allen said. "But there's nothing better than helping out your fellow Soldiers."
| Date Taken: | 03.16.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 03.16.2006 10:03 |
| Story ID: | 5752 |
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| Web Views: | 111 |
| Downloads: | 25 |
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