Days in the life:
4/3
1200: Go to lunch
1300: Go back to my trailer and take a one hour nap before a long flight
1400: Prepare for flying a nine hour flight
1450: Arrive at life support and pick up my night vision goggles
1500: Briefing on Intelligence and tactics with crew
1530: Call my wife before I fly. She has asked that I tell her only after I flown and made
it back safely, this time she guesses I am about to go flying. I am sorry
1545: Head out to the aircraft
1630: Take off and fly for 8 hours and 20 minutes over Baghdad. During the flight
at the 6th hour when everyone is in a zone, I suddenly hear the co-pilot say,
“Pilot did you see that?” Almost immediately I hear the pilot say, “Pilot has the
aircraft.” We bank quickly to the left. What was seen was some type of
munition heading in our direction. Everyone is alert and wide awake for the rest
of the flight
4/4
0100: Land and keep engines running while maintenance checks out an engine that is
running a little out of specifications
0110: The engines are shut down and I go back to life support to turn in my night vision
goggles. Go to the bathroom and try to call my wife and let her know I am back
on the ground. Can’t get through
0120: Start walking back to my trailer, about a mile and a half
0140: Arrive at my trailer and drop my stuff go to the call center and talk to the lovely
wife
0200: Read my bible
0230: Defense system fires, I was awake but if I weren’t I would have been awakened
by the sound. Turn off the lights, it fires again, go to sleep
0710: Alarm clocks wakes me from deep slumber. I shower and get dressed.
0745: Head to the hospital for intensive care unit rounds in the radiology tent. Go to
ICU 2 where we have the children. Four children are on ventilators, another is a
baby with serious infections due to an immunodeficiency. A variety of children
are on the ward
0845: Finish rounds head back to the clinic to check email. Discuss politics and religion
1045: Head to the call center to call my mom and wish her a happy birthday, I couldn’t
get through earlier and I only have 15 minutes to catch her while it is still the 3rd
on the west coast
1130: Go to lunch
1200: Return to my trailer to take a nap before my night shift in the contingency
aeromedical staging facility CASF where we prepare patients for air evacuation.
1310: Lay down
1610: Alarm clock wakes me from a deep nap.
1620: Go to fitness center run 4 miles, 170 sit ups and 170 push ups
1730: Take a shower and change into my flight suit.
1755: Head to the clinic for a commanders call
1820: Go to dinner
1845: Head back to my trailer pickup a few things for my night and walk to the CASF
1900: Arrive at the CASF, check email and call the lovely wife and start laundry. It isn’t
very glamorous war stuff, but the reality is that you need to get your laundry done
or you start to lose friends.
1945: Start medically clearing patients for aero-medical evacuation.
2030: Go back to the operations building to drop off a piece of survival “gear” that I
forgot to give back after the flight.
2100: Go to hospital to clear a patient who was in a car accident. I check in on the kids
in the ICU plus another one in the ward
2230: Go back to the CASF and clear patients who just came in from bases scattered
around Iraq. Most are non battle injuries. Fold laundry
2300: Go back to hospital to clear more patients who just came in by helicopter
4/5
2400: Go back to the CASF and answer some more emails and work on this before I
forget all of the places I have been. The plane will arrive in about 2 hours and
scheduled to depart around 0450. No chance of sleep until we have loaded
the patients
0040: Discuss plan to load the patients with the entire CASF staff
0140: Back to the hospital to check on a patient who is supposed to go out on a plane
tonight but there is a concern that he is getting worse and might need to travel with
our Critical Care Air Transport Team CCATT
0200: Pt looked good and was resting comfortably. Back to the CASF, the plane, a C-17
will land in about 40 minutes and then once they remove the cargo we will load
patients. While the cargo is being unloaded, the nurse will give report and I will
be available in case the air-evac nurse has any questions.
0340: Arrived back at CASF
0345: Go to the hospital to clear patients who just arrived by helicopter. Three patients:
one young man with a gunshot wound to the leg and two others with non-battle
injuries
0410: Return to CASF, time to try to get some sleep, before the 0650 alarm clock
invitation to wake up.
0650: One of my fellow flight docs is my alarm clock as he appears to relieve me. I am
willing to admit, that I am still a little tired.
0700: Off to the hospital to round on the children before I get any more sleep
0800: In the radiology tent again to look at the studies that have been performed in the
last 24 hours on the patients in the ICU
0815: Go to ICU 2 to round on the children. There are five children here today. Three
are on ventilators, one was just taken off the ventilator and one is the two month
old with the immunodeficiency. I will write more about the children soon.
0905: Return to the CASF to grab my stuff.
0935: Walk home to my trailer
0945: Get to my trailer and prepare to take a nap
1015: Turn off the lights and go to bed, “Now Lord lay me down to sleep……….”
1200: Still asleep, (I wake up at 1320)
My life is probably better than most of the docs here. The surgeons sleep much less than I do. In 48 hours I got around 12 hours and 5 minutes of sleep over four different sleeping periods. Within those periods there are planes, controlled detonations and alarms that often interfere with restful sleep. This is pretty typical.
I have the honor of following my calling as a Christian physician here; however, a lot of what I do day to day is just a duty to fulfill my calling.
More thoughts on calling vs duty coming soon
Solis Deo Gloria
Duke
Posted by Tim at April 5, 2007 08:35 PM
