News & Events :: Media Mentions

Visalia's War Doctor

By Laura Florez
Visalia Times-Delta, February 23, 2005

When Dr. Thomas Lee walks into the emergency room at Kaweah Delta Hospital, there's one memory he refuses to check at the door.

Filled with intense 120-degree days, sand storms, the sounds of mortar attacks, gunfire and helping others, the memory is of Lee's 12-month tour of duty with the U.S Army in Iraq.

Lee, who served as Battalion Surgeon and Assistant Public Health Team Leader for the 425th Civil Affairs Battalion last year, is in his third month back to work at Kaweah Delta.

But whether trying to save a trauma victim or treating a cold in the emergency room, the memory of war is still fresh in his mind.

"It was a very intense experience — a life-changing experience," Lee, 38, said. "I still have friends there I'm worried about."

Lee, a graduate of Exeter Union High School, was the first emergency department physician in Tulare County deployed to Iraq.

Orders to mobilize were delivered to Lee, a major in the Army reserves, late in 2003. He was told he had 10 days to report.

"It was pretty shocking. The No. 1 thing was how to tell [my family]," he said. "I always wanted to support the country."

After breaking the news to his family and co-workers, Lee spent several months in the United States undergoing intense combat training.

They were days filled with shooting drills and ambush training, which included mock villages and grenade simulators, he said. His trainers, whether civil affairs or special forces, had all been to Iraq.

Later, he underwent training in Kuwait carrying gurneys on and off helicopters in the desert. It was a chance to get acclimated to the heat — which Lee described as hot as someone holding a hair dryer to your neck — time zone and the sand and dust storms, he said.

But the reality — that Lee was preparing for war — never really sunk in, he said.

"I never really thought about the implications," he said. "I was learning how to defend myself and my teammates. I would have done whatever I had to do."

It wasn't until Lee's plane was landing in Baghdad that he said the reality of war really sank in. Lee's unit had been told they could be fired on while in the air. And when driving through the streets of Baghdad in hummers, they were advised to stay away from vehicles and traffic jams or they could be ambushed.

"You just sit there and pray nothing happens to you," he said. "You're constantly looking around."

Family members of Lee's, like his mother Dora, said they were worried about Lee, but tried to keep in mind that he had always had a heart to serve others.

"He was doing what he needed to do for his country," she said. "Like all the guys that are serving the country, they were in danger. They were blowing up all around him, and you never knew who would be next. It was a very scary time."

While in Iraq, Lee's unit stayed at Baghdad International Airport, where several camps had been set up for the military, but the unit spent its days out and about.

"What we were there to do was to help people," he said. "Our goal was to improve the lives of people and the infrastructure of the country we were in."

To do that, Lee's unit visited hospitals and medical clinics where he assessed their needs to see what could be done to improve health care for the Iraqi people. Most of the facilities were built in the 1970s and falling apart, he said. They also were in need of supplies, such as medications, gauze, bandages and IVs.

"It's hard to believe how they can function on so little," he said.

To help doctors, Lee's unit arranged for medical facilities to be renovated and supplied, but to leave a lasting impression on health care, Lee also served as Senior Consulting Editor of the Iraqi Journal of Medicine. He served as an adviser, wrote editorials and generated the proposal to continue funding the publication.

The journal became the only source of outside medical information to help Iraqi physicians improve health care.

"There's a lot of good doctors, but they are behind like 10 years because of Saddam," he said. "There's more than 5 million people in Baghdad.

There's a lot of patient load there."

Lee also assumed control of a national project to train first responders in Basic Trauma Life Support, and provided medical support for his unit, supervising treatment and treating battalion and other soldiers battle injuries.

Lee even found himself helping out with some veterinary and agricultural missions. One involved transporting adult lions two-by-two in the back of hummers from a cage they had outgrown in the Green Zone, where Saddam Hussein's government was formerly headquartered, to a larger enclosure at the Baghdad Zoo.

But it wasn't just the heat or riding in close proximity to a sedated lion that made Lee break a sweat. It was the fact that the mission put Lee and his unit in grave danger. "That's kind of what we became known for," he said. "At any time we could have been shot."

Hearing Lee's stories, family members including his father, Larry, say they are impressed that their son was able to help people a world away.

"It's something that you're very proud of when you hear it. It was something that he was helping the country, helping the people and trying to get them back together after all these years of tyranny that Saddam had laid on them," he said.

The experience, Lee says, has made him not only a better person, but a better doctor.

"It helped me to deal with stressful situations. I think I take better care of my patients," said Lee, who is also a Partner with California Emergency Physicians Medical Group, a provider of physician staffing, management, and consulting services for Emergency Department and Ambulatory Care Practices in California.

"I think I relate better with my patients, and they relate to me better," he said.