Erich Schlegel for The New York Times
CRITICAL CARE Col. John Holcomb, a top trauma surgeon in the Army.
Posted on 11/06/2007 8:32:28 PM PST by neverdem
Scientist at Work | John Holcomb
SAN ANTONIO — Since the war in Iraq began, Col. John Holcomb has been working to change the way the military takes care of its wounded.
Along the way he has suffered a few dings himself.
A tall medical doctor with a Southern lilt and close-cropped gray hair, Colonel Holcomb, 48, has spent his entire 27-year career in the Army, earning a reputation as one of the military’s top trauma surgeons. Since 2001, he has headed the Army’s Institute of Surgical Research, based on the campus of the Brooke Army Medical Center here.
Under his watch, Army surgeons have become aggressive users of a controversial drug called Factor VII, which promotes clotting in cases of severe bleeding. He has also guided a redesign of the transport system for wounded soldiers, encouraging helicopter pilots to take the severely injured to the hospitals best able to treat them, even if they are not the closest.
Colonel Holcomb also strongly advocates conducting clinical trials to improve trauma care. It is an ethically tricky area, because trauma research can involve trying novel treatments on severely injured patients who cannot give informed consent. But he argues that any ethical problems pale in comparison to the toll that traumatic injuries take on civilians and soldiers every day.
He is fond of quoting a surprising statistic: trauma is the third-leading cause of death in the United States, taking 160,000 lives in 2004, more than any other cause except heart disease and cancer. Because it primarily affects the young, trauma leads all diseases in terms of life-years lost.
And besides the 4,000 American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, there have been 29,000 injuries from hostile fire, including 9,000 severe enough to require transport to hospitals outside the war zones.
In the face...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
War zone evac hospitals are ...well, you never forget your stay in one.
Looks like he needs to spend more money on his bed and less on his dresser.
Oh my I graduated Medical School with this guy. Liked him then and it sounds like I should now. He is tall and no wonder he talks with a southern accent. He is a son of the South. How neat. I think I will drop him a letter and thank him.
Surgeons (and Doctors in general) with aggressive attitudes are what brought us to the level of medicine that we enjoy today.
That may be his flop when in Iraq.
Good luck! 8^)
Yeah, I'm guessing Uncle Sam must be his interior decorator.
Watching a good trauma surgeon work is a thing of beauty. I would love to see how long it takes this guy to get into a belly and identify the source of bleeding in a blowed up soldier. The movie MASH doesn’t even come close to the real thing. My concern with modern trained surgeons is that they do so much laparoscopic surgery that they don’t really get the experience with open laparotomy any more. I admire the good Col here, God bless him and his surgery brothers.
Please include my thanks to him too, and to others like him, in your letter.
Freakin’ NY Times and their skewed headlines! I’m so sick of them doing this crap. This guy is a regular American hero and a bit daring and they have to say he is too agressive for some. Well, some people say a lot of things. That doesn’t make it a good basis for a headline. Idiots.
My son was sooo proud when he got to work with Col. Holcomb. That experience has been one of the highlights of his military career and an inspiration to him.
The gene that turns breast-milk into brain food
Why poor kids may make sicker adults Have a chuckle!
Curing Insomnia Without the Pills Having reread the piece and checking its links, I'm saving it.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
He has also guided a redesign of the transport system for wounded soldiers, encouraging helicopter pilots to take the severely injured to the hospitals best able to treat them, even if they are not the closest.
Col. Holcomb’s work will be trauma rules years from now. Advances are always made in treating trauma with every war thanks to agressive trauma surgeons.
Personally, I’m glad he’s trying new things.
!!!TRADITION!!! has no place in improving medical care.
= = =
There is an interesting . . . side note, however, from my profession . . . .
surgeons score higher on sadism on the MMPI than the average person.
Concur. The same can be easily said of military hospital burn wards as well.
No better care anywhere.
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