Combat Radiologist

For those who say we never touch patients. For those who say we sit in dark rooms and look at pictures because we're afraid of patients, I offer the following story.

The medevac report comes in. IED attack on an armored vehicle. CPR is being performed in the helicopter.

The patient is brought off the helicopter. He's pale, very pale, the kind of pale that comes from significant blood loss. He's not breathing on his own. He's missing most of his right leg below the knee. He has a large gash on his upper inside thigh. He has a tourniquet on the same leg.

He's rushed into the OR. I put the ultrasound probe on his chest to look for any cardiac activity. I look again. There is none. It's over. Young 20s. Gone. We cover him with a blanket. My eyes briefly water. I move on.

I'm not afraid to touch patients. I don't sit in the dark and look at pictures because I'm afraid of patients. Sometimes I'd rather sit in the dark because I know what I'm going to see, and it's not going to be pretty.

I saw his casket loaded onto a C-130 the next day for the flight home. His casket will be met by his wife and new baby. His wife will now mourn the loss of her second husband. Her first husband was killed in Iraq. She celebrated her birthday on the day he was killed.

Welcome to Afghanistan.

I've been here for three weeks. In that time I've seen more amputations and traumatic death than in the 14 years since I started medical school. I watched a soldier cry today as he awoke from anesthesia to find that he now missing his left foot after stepping on a mine. I briefly thought to myself that he's lucky that he's only missing a part of one limb, why's he crying? He's otherwise uninjured. These thoughts were quickly replaced with feelings of shame. How can I think those things? Apparently I can. And it only took three weeks.

In the practice of medicine we often find ourselves developing attitudes about patients and diseases that the average person would find abhorrent. We're supposed to be better than this, but we're also human.

The patients I see are making a sacrifice that is completely foreign to the vast majority of Americans. They deserve the best we can give them, in actions and thoughts. I give them my best with my actions. For a couple seconds I didn't give them my best with my thoughts. It won't happen again. I'm sorry.