Flying is an essential task for a flight surgeon. The initial appeal of being a flight surgeon for many of us is the coolness factor with...

Since moving to southern Oregon I’ve been taunted by the constant roar of fighter jets buzzing the skies. One of my main motivations for...

The most terrifying thing possible for a young physician is to be alone in the middle of Africa with an overweight, hypertensive,...

The day, or I should say night in a mid November of 2011 started like any other night in the plywood palace that was our clinic in...

One of the ultimate hypocrisies I’ve noticed in the military is the obsession with preaching safety when at home. Driving 15mph on base,...

The first time I heard the loud speaker shout out “INCOMING INCOMING” I nearly fell off the couch in the clinic where at least I thought...

So after five months in Afghanistan I have a couple stories to tell. I should mention that since some of the people I work with have...

Al Udeid air base is a small military staging area in Qatar right in the middle of the Persian gulf. For the most part it functions as...

Leaving for a conventional military deployment has come a long ways since the days of GIs stepping out to a rusty old plane hell bound to...

Placing a blood pressure cuff on a patient is typically a simple task.  This time was an exception. I felt for the cuff in my bag, pulled...

As the cold front settles in on Baltimore, the snow begins to fall, and the roads begin to freeze.  On this chilly Friday night,...

It’s incredibly difficult to be a good surgical resident when it’s the exact opposite of anything I self identify with.  Working in the...

The Trauma Resuscitation Unit, or “TRU,” as it’s known, is probably the number one place you don’t want to find yourself after a night of...

CSTARS “Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills” is essentially the military’s solution to get Docs, nurses, and medics...

SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.  Each branch of the military has a school that teaches the fundamentals of...

My first survival school course at Fairchild AFB in Spokane was a one-day course known as “Dunker” training, or underwater helicopter...

For the next several months I’m being submerged into a training pipeline that is designed to get me spun up to the point of being a fully...

For the next several months I’ll be engaging in various training programs with the idea of getting me “spun up” to be a fully functional...