Doctor has role reserved in Iraq

By PTE John Wellfare

*

Australian medical personnel will be in Iraq for at least another three months. The main body of the latest medical rotation leaves at the end of this month.

THE ADF medical commitment to Operation Catalyst has been extended until June and a new rotation has begun to deploy. A fresh 20-person medical team, which includes members from each of the three Services, is due to be in Iraq by the end of the month.

Seven of the specialists have already deployed. Air Force respiratory medicine and intensive care specialist Reserve doctor Squadron Leader Stuart Miller, who was due to deploy shortly after Air Force newspaper went to print, said he felt more excited than nervous about the three-month deployment.

“I honestly feel excited to have the opportunity to use my training and to try and make a difference,” he said. “All the women in my family are concerned, including my seven-year-old daughter, but all the men are very enthusiastic, including my five-year-old son.”

SQNLDR Miller, who works in the intensive care ward at Hobart’s Calvary Hospital and is attached to No. 29 (City of Hobart) Squadron, said he expected the deployment would be a unique experience.

“I think it’s going to be a marvellous opportunity to learn new things, professionally and personally,” he said.

“As an intensive care physician, this is really a golden opportunity for me to use my high-level skills for the Air Force and it’s not an opportunity that comes up every day. I really jumped at it.

“I think it will be different, not only because of the type of patient we’ll see, but because of the military environment that we’ll be working in.”

SQNLDR Miller said he and many of his fellow specialist reserves with hospital experience would be well prepared for the intensity of medical work in Iraq.

“You only really become a good emergency, critical care, intensive care physician when you’ve been in cases of lots of pressure and several very sick patients, and that’s the situation that we are dealing with frequently in public hospital intensive care units across Australia,” SQNLDR Miller said.

“We have multiple sick patients arriving, shortages of staff, limited equipment and you really have to think quickly and carefully about the best way to manage these people, and that situation isn’t too far from what I expect we’ll be dealing with in Iraq.

“In a way, our civilian experience, both in medicine and nursing and intensive care, that really trains us pretty well for the situation I think we’re going to face.”

.