Deployed Keesler medic serves life-saving role

Published May 16, 2012
By Steve Pivnick
81st Medical Group Public Affairs

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Keesler Hospital emergency physician Maj. (Dr.) Melissa Dooley is putting her expertise to use during her current deployment to Afghanistan. A member of the 81st Medical Operations Squadron Emergency Services Flight, Dooley has been assigned to a forward operating base as part of a Navy forward surgical team since December.

She explained, "This facility performs what is called 'damage control surgery,' which consists of stabilization surgery to save lives. Patients receive surgery to control or stop bleeding, reduce fractures and limit further damage from their trauma. Often these patients are in critical condition post-operatively and are still on a ventilator, receiving resuscitative fluids, blood products and medications. They are then packaged and prepared for transport via a (U.S. Army UH60) Black Hawk helicopter with me and the medevac crew to a Role 3 medical facility where more definitive treatment can start."

Dooley continued, "Medical Airmen are here as part of the joint team. My Air Force tactical critical care evacuation team consists of two nurse anesthetists and an emergency medicine doctor. The three of us are then sent out individually to different locations in-theater supporting remote FOBs.

Our guiding principle behind this system of medical care is to ensure that the level of care patients get at each stage never decreases in capability in an effort to increase survival from battlefield to final destination. I am part of the second group to do this job, so we are constantly adapting patient care and coordinating lessons learned from having an Air Force doctor attached to a Navy command filling an Army billet. This experience has been the most satisfying part of my Air Force medical career."