I.E.D. part 2 - The Combat Surgeon
Improvised Explosive Device
1. Dr Tom Carrell - background 2. Battlefield Medicine 3. Route to War - the training 4. reading - The Oscillating saw @ 32.15 5. Camp Bastion, Hellmand 6. The IED - lessons and thoughts
Tom Carrell is a doctor who qualified in the 90s. He also served as a territorial soldier based out of the Duke of York’s barracks in London. In 2004 he was appointed consultant vascular surgeon specialising in minimally invasive endovascular surgery at St Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital. He was posted as a Combat Surgeon to Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in 2008/2009 and 2012. He is now a partner in the Cambridge medical research company Cydar, which he founded with others in 2012.
This is his account of his time in Afghanistan as a Combat Surgeon. It is a very moving and personal description of the intense pressure a frontline medic is subjected to. Although the training is extremely rigorous, the work of a field hospital in a war zone is almost indescribable. New techniques are tested, developed and rediscovered in the hellish environment of war, and then applied across the NHS and other health services for the great benefit of the civilian population.
So it goes,
Tom Assheton & James Jackson
Reading reference:
Anatomy of a Soldier by Harry Parker
See also:
https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/
https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com
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