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FARAH PROVINCE, Afghanistan - As the waiting rooms begin to fill with patients, and coughs and cries echo down the hallway, Forward Surgical Team members and medical team members from the Provincial Reconstruction Team Farah, enter the Special Operations Forces Clinic ready for anything.
Diagnosis and outpatient care is their focus. Many of the Afghan local nationals simply cannot be treated at the SOF Clinic, as was the case for Mirajan Mohammad, a 60-year-old man who travelled to the clinic from Farah city in a wheel chair. His leg ached and he explained that he had broken it before, already undergone surgery once and recently fell again.
Navy Cmdr. Robert Strange and Cmdr. Todd Peterson, both general trauma surgeons with the PRT, and Lt. Cmdr. Michael Bradley, an orthopaedic surgeon with the PRT, work with an interpreter to better understand Mirajan's pain and what circumstances led to his injury.
"Ask him why the plate was removed from his leg," Bradley said to Reza, the interpreter.
This is what the PRT and FST medical teams do twice a week. A typical PRT medical team, consisting of a medical provider, either a doctor or physicians assistant and a corpsman, enter the clinic not knowing what type of injuries or illnesses they may encounter. Surgeons from FST ride along to offer their expertise.
Their hours are not set; the number of patients is not limited. "We stay until we see them all," Peterson said.
Mirajan is moved on a litter to the outside of the building. He will now travel in a military vehicle onto Forward Operating Base Farah for x-rays. The litter is lowered to the sidewalk and an interpreter crouches next to Mirajan to explain what is going to happen.
The SOF Clinic is run by the Special Forces Civil Affairs department and the current PRT medical team has conducted bi-weekly missions there since they arrived in July 2009.
"The goal of the PRT is capacity development," said Cmdr. Harvey Wilds, PRT Farah medical team commander. "When we arrived, that wasn't happening at the SOF Clinic," Wilds said.
Since Cmdr. Wilds' team arrived they have begun a partnership with local doctors from the Farah Hospital. When the SOF Clinic is open, not only are the PRT medics assessing patients and scheduling surgeries, they are also training and equipping the surgeons and internists from Farah Hospital at the same time.
After all the patients have been assessed and treated, Cmdrs. Strange, Peterson and Bradley head back to the FOB Farah Clinic. Mirajan is waiting. He needs surgery now, to repair his severely fractured left femur.
"The next step is to get the surgeons from Farah Hospital to the PRT on a regular schedule when our surgeons are in the operating room," Wilds said. "Then I'd like to expand the number of local surgeons in attendance from two to four," said Wilds.
The ultimate goal of Cmdr. Wilds and his team is to see the SOF Clinic completely turned over to the local Afghan doctors — for them to take control.
Mirajan is in recovery now. A nurse, Lt. Cmdr. Rosemary Frieson, is monitoring his vitals. She gives him some oxygen to help his blood pressure come down. The surgery lasted one and a half hours and Mirajan now has a permanent 13-inch stainless steel plate in his left leg secured by 11 screws.
"It will take him three months to heal. As soon as he heals he should be as good as new," Bradley said.
Farah Hospital has been notified and they will transport Mirajan so he can recover there.
The PRT medical team has completed its mission for the day. Not only did the team members assist patients, they taught their Afghanistan colleagues, and they will do it again and again until they are no longer needed by the people of Farah.
| Date Taken: | 10.29.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 11.11.2009 00:34 |
| Story ID: | 41400 |
| Location: | FARAH PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 209 |
| Downloads: | 184 |
This work, Unknown Conditions Given Known Treatments, by MSgt Tracy DeMarco, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
