BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --
When receiving a set of orders for
a deployment, many people are left with an assortment of questions; what will I
do, where will I go and will I make a difference.
For U.S. Air Force Maj. Jonathan
Forbes, a neurosurgeon assigned to the 455th Expeditionary Medical Group, he
knew he would be deploying from the friendly confines of Travis Air Force Base,
California and going to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, where he would work at
the Craig Joint Theater Hospital, which is the busiest hospital in Afghanistan.
“In talking with some guys that
have been here before, there’s this expectation of being involved in trauma
surgery and war injuries,” said Forbes, a New Martinsville, West Virginia
native. “I had heard about the humanitarian hospital, but I didn’t really know
what to expect, I didn’t know what kind of cases we would be seeing in
comparison to the elective cases we see back home. I really didn’t know what to
expect at all, but it has been a very pleasant experience here.”
According to Forbes working at CJTH
is no easy task; many of the staff are on call 24/7 for trauma care for Afghan and
American soldiers as well as contractors.
As a Neurosurgeon, Forbes receives
calls regarding any injuries to the brain or spinal column and any herniated
discs that American or Afghan service members may experience. These types of
injuries are what Forbes is here for.
Since those injuries do not occur often,
the 455 EMDG allows their doctors to assist in providing humanitarian services
at the Korean Humanitarian Hospital here.
Forbes and a few other doctors have
been able to see patients during specific clinic hours at the Korean hospital.
The Korean Hospital is staffed with
Korean and Afghan doctors, which according to Forbes allows for an intersection
of three cultures.
“It’s been great commiserating with
the physicians and just talking with them about different cases,” said Forbes.
The process of seeing patients is a
team effort from the start as Afghan and Korean physicians see the patients and
utilize CT scans to decide whether they may need the help of one of the
American physicians.
With these partnerships, Forbes has
built a bond with some of the Afghan physicians.
“I’ve learned a lot from Dr.
Forbes,“ said Dr. Ahmed, an Afghan doctor with the hospital “With him being a
neurosurgeon, I’ve learned a lot about brain tumors, the place of the brain
tumor and the spinal cord; the disc compression and the genetic change. With
this training, when this hospital closes in June of 2015, I hope to open my own
place.
There were some challenges that
Forbes faced. Not so much with what kind of service to provide, but how to
provide it, due in large part to the limited equipment that was available.
“The surgical practice and what we choose to
operate on doesn’t change much, but how we do it changes quite a bit,” added
Forbes.
In those challenges, Forbes has
found successes. In one such case, there was a woman who was very weak in her
legs and had lost the ability to walk. The woman had tuberculosis and had
developed Potts Disease in her spinal column, which caused the spinal cord to
be pinched. His team took bone from her fibula and reconstructed her spinal column
and now the woman is back to walking again.
Forbes had limited expectations
when he journeyed to Bagram, but in the end, he was able to contribute and make
a difference and learn from his deployment after performing 65 surgeries and
conducting countless consultations.
“I had a certain set of expectations coming in
and that was different than what I encountered,” added Forbes. “I have a better
sense of the culture over here. This is a nation over here fighting to
establish it self. It’s been a pleasure serving here.”