Since the onset of the US-led invasion of Iraq, thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. We hear the reports on the daily news, stories about injuries caused by car bombs and IEDs. But for most of us, terms like 'wounded' and 'injury' are relatively abstract. Not so for the battlefield surgeons and army nurses who?ve been serving in the US military?s forward surgical teams and Combat Support Hospitals. I spent some time talking with a number of military medical professionals who?ve just returned from recent tours of duty in Iraq, and I put together this story about war and medicine?
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Piece Description
Since the onset of the US-led invasion of Iraq, thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. We hear the reports on the daily news, stories about injuries caused by car bombs and IEDs. But for most of us, terms like 'wounded' and 'injury' are relatively abstract. Not so for the battlefield surgeons and army nurses who?ve been serving in the US military?s forward surgical teams and Combat Support Hospitals. I spent some time talking with a number of military medical professionals who?ve just returned from recent tours of duty in Iraq, and I put together this story about war and medicine?
Broadcast History
This piece aired originally on WYPR's arts program The Signal, on 10.06.06
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John Biewen
Posted on October 27, 2006 at 02:39 PM | Permalink
Review of War and Medicine: Reflections of Battlefield Healers
It's a good and worthy idea: to glimpse our current wars through the eyes of military doctors and nurses. The piece is straight acts and trax, based on interviews with several military health workers home from Iraq. There are compelling if predictable moments. A surgeon describes needing to live with triage choices he made when faced with a large number of badly wounded troops. A nurse tells of feeling sad when thinking of the loved ones of a soldier who's just died in front of her.
The report is at a calm remove from the reality of U.S. medical centers in Iraq and so, inevitably, it feels a bit dry. And the piece could have benefited from more direct writing at times, for example when the reporter refers to the arrival of a bunch of bloodied soldiers at an operating room as a "mass casualty situation." But "War and Medicine" has strengths and would make a good insert for many stations.