Army Senior Radiologist: "It's More Than a Job"
To gauge the key role of radiology in today's U.S. military, consider this: Overall, one out of three Army radiologists has already been deployed to wartime Iraq or Afghanistan. Among their younger peers, that rate is close to 50 percent.
From July to October 2006, one of the Army's most senior radiologists and ACR member, Col. James A. Breitweser, M.C., traveled to Baghdad for a three-month stint at Ibn Sina Hospital in the city's famous Green Zone. Traditionally, military radiologists were rarely deployed to areas of conflict, but ongoing military operations have rewritten the old rules such that today, they are apt to find themselves just minutes from combat.
"For us, the 'battlefield' was a five-minute Blackhawk ride right into our back door," Breitweser recalls from his office at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. "Since the Green Zone is dead smack in the center of Baghdad, everything gets flown in there. American and Iraqi forces would come in within minutes of one of their vehicles being hit by an improvised explosive device (IED), or whatever. We saw the whole gamut of what happens in warfare — injuries from IEDs, rocket mortars, snipers, and more. For every soldier killed, we could expect 10 to 15 injured, which made for quite a busy situation."
Today at Tripler, Breitweser is an administrator. In Baghdad's Green Zone, he says, "I basically provided trauma radiology support to some highly skilled and highly motivated surgeons, nurses, and all the people who are there to take care of our soldiers and to support the Iraqi military and civilian population." He describes conditions as "relatively austere" but adds, "It was very satisfying practice."
At age 60, Breitweser long ago qualified for early retirement but doesn't plan on stepping down any time soon. "I enjoy being a military radiologist. For us, it's more than a job. It's the sense of necessity of defending our country and the values of soldiers doing very, very difficult jobs. Providing them with the necessary medical care that they deserve and require is really quite a great way of living."
Reflecting on his experience in the Green Zone, Breitweser says, "Physicians are remarkably prepared to go into those kinds of situations. I think we fall back on our professionalism. I didn't necessarily sit there and really look at the absolute trauma. I think most physicians are less concerned with their own safety and more with doing the job we have been trained to do."
At Tripler, Breitweser says he and his staff wear uniforms and salute, but otherwise he finds military and civilian radiology remarkably alike. "I think any radiologist who would come in here from a civilian practice or from the academic world would feel very comfortable and at home," he says. His staff performs about 150,000 radiographic studies annually, placing its workload "well up into the upper fourth of all military treatment facilities worldwide." The center is currently installing a 3-tesla MRI scanner and a PET-CT scanner. Health care is available to all U.S. service members, retirees, and their families.
Military compensation is actually quite good, he says. "Actually, the U.S. government has understood the value of military radiologists … and has acted vigorously in providing bonuses and special pay. The additional thing is that our income is not taxable and we have a direct retirement system. Quite frankly, we ain't starving."
Looking to the future, Breitweser says he may well return to Iraq. "Even though I know there are risks associated with it, as long as we have our soldiers there, I want to make sure that their medical care is the absolute top that we can provide," he says. "We have to keep our faith with them."