Medicine on the Front Lines

Dr. Laitman introduced the lecturer today by saying, "As you all very well know, this country is at war. Because of this, it is important for you to know what medicine is like on the front lines." The lecturer was Dr. Kasulke, the Deputy Surgeon General of the US Army. He went on to give a very blunt, somewhat grusome, and not-candy-coated lecture on the weapons the Army uses to kill people (i.e. M16 rifles, landmines, etc), and what the weapons do to the human body. In some regards Dr. Kasulke was very frank and non-judgemental about war: he made no comments about whether war is right or wrong, whether we should be sending 18-year-olds to imminent danger or not, whether we have any right to invade sovereign countries. I was struck by how he viewed his position as no more than a job, not unlike any other physician in any other hospital-- although, justifiably more intense in his case.

He also made the deliberate point that the Army Medical Corps treated soldiers of all countries alike, be them American, British, Afgani, or Iraqi. He went on to say that in the case of medical triage, if two soldiers were brought to the medical camp, an American with a superficial bullet wound to his arm, and an Afgani with multiple bullet and shrapnel wounds to his torso, the Afgani would be treated before the American soldier. In other words, the American Army sends kids over to Iraq and Afganistan with the expressed purpose of eliminating the insurgent opposition, but if they don't manage to kill the "enemy" (as Dr. Kasulke referred to them a couple of times), then the Army sought them out and treated them, possibly even before their own casualties. Does that not send a conflicting message? Why do we send soldiers there in the first place, if we're just going to treat the wounded soldiers that the American troops attack? As an American soldier, I would probably find that to be a conflict of interest.

I think it is important to be prepared for all medical situations that can come up around the world. This lecture, however, just gave me a sense of the futility of it all. It's hard to feel good about attempting to do something good for people and even society, when it seems that more often than not we so easily regress and lose years of progress and advancement in the blink of an eye.