Kandahar, Afghanistan

We arrived here at around 3 a.m. last Tuesday after a nice flight from Kuwait in a C-17. The base is a sprawling mixture of tents, modular living units, more tents, concrete blast barriers and buildings of different sizes and shapes. There are a few paved roads and the rest are dirt roads. Dust is a common theme here with a constant low-level haze at ground level. We can see some small mountains to the north, otherwise, all I see is the base and more buildings. The weather is basically sunny and up to mid 70s during the day and down in the 40s at night. I'm told that winters get cold and also rainy. Great...can't wait to see what kind of a mudpit this place becomes!

Since this is a NATO base, there are a multitude of uniforms, flags, and languages. It's sort of a game to try to figure out who's who in the zoo. I'm working in a hospital that is a mixture of small connected portable buildings and some

tents. The hospital is staffed by the U.S. Navy, Canadians, and Dutch. I have one 16-slice CT scanner, a couple of ultrasounds, plain-film x-ray, and a C-arm in the OR that I use for interventional cases. My IR supplies are currently in a variety of boxes in various rooms and one of my first orders of business is to consolidate and inventory the supplies. We will be staffed with two radiologists, myself and a general radiologist.

So, as in many things, the job can be slow at times, but when it picks up, it is frightening. I've seen multiple traumas already and I'm pleased to say that we do a good job with them. The injuries are not the kind that you see in the U.S., and we should all be thankful for that. So often as radiologists we are too far removed from the actual patient, but I'm very happy to be in the trauma bays when the patients roll in because it makes imaging easier when I have a sense of what has happened to the patient.

Living arrangements: I'm in what is effectively a small college dorm room. I share the room with Jon Gibbons, an anesthesiologist and med school classmate. We have real beds and internet in the room. Life could be so much worse so there is really nothing to complain about from that aspect. We have a nice gym outside our door and are in walking distance to most of the base amenities, including multiple dining facilities (and they have helpful handwashing stations inside of them!) Speaking of the internet - this is a dramatic quality of life issue. I'm able to skype and call (via magicjack) from my room!

So, there you have it. A brief intro to Kandahar. Not too exciting, I know. More to follow.