Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 16, 1991 TAG: 9103160145
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It wasn't until later that he found out Bethesda also is in charge of the USS Comfort, and the Roanoke neurosurgeon was slated for the hospital ship in the Persian Gulf.
As he left Roanoke for goodness knows what on the other end, Stevens confessed to feeling, well, kind of overwhelmed by the change in plans. At 55, he said then, "I'm getting kind of old to be doing these kinds of things."
So now that he's back home after more than two months in the war zone, how does he feel?
"I told my wife and secretary I feel 10 years younger," Stevens says. "They said, `We don't know if we can take that.'"
Some physicians around the country have come back from active duty complaining about the financial hardship of shutting down a lucrative practice and making do on military pay.
But Stevens - possibly the only Western Virginia doctor sent to the gulf - says he comes back reinvigorated.
"Actually, it was a fun experience," he says. "It rekindled my fire that starts to get a little dimmer when you get a little older in this business. It's gotten me out of a track of thinking about early retirement."
A growing batch of insurance and government regulations make medicine frustrating for a lot of older physicians, Stevens says. So when he got word in early January that his Staunton-based reserve unit was going to be activated - and folks were talking then about a six-month war - Stevens figured he'd have to shut down his solo practice.
And if he was gone for that long, he feared that starting his practice up again might be more trouble than it was worth. He ruminated about being forced into retirement.
He wasn't alone. The mobilization of reserves for the Persian Gulf disrupted many Americans' lives, but perhaps none drew so much attention as that of doctors.
For one thing, the military relies heavily on reservists to provide medical care in emergencies; some 80 percent of the doctors, physicians and medical technicians serving in the gulf were reservists. And many of those were in high-paid specialities necessary to treat combat wounds.
"It was a significant financial hardship for some of the younger physicians," Stevens says. Some took 75 percent pay cuts when they got called up, he says, and suddenly found themselves in financial straits.
There were calls around the country for the military to raise the pay of medical reservists - or risk having many doctors quit the reserves, for fear of being unable to afford another call-up.
"For someone in my position, it was an entirely different ball game," Stevens says. After 22 years, "I have a well-established practice and have financial reserves."
He found other neurosurgeons to take care of his patients and even was able to keep his secretary on the payroll. Bills and paperwork would keep flowing in for several months anyway, he says. "But I had psychologically figured out that after six months, it would have been a hardship for someone like myself. I would have been quite concerned about trying to start up again."
Instead, Stevens got back late last week - and returns profoundly impressed by the military's hustle.
In normal times, the Comfort sits unused. When it set sail for the Persian Gulf last fall, the crew of 295 regular Navy medical personnel from Bethesda had to uncrate all the equipment and supplies and turn the ship into a modern hospital.
"It took them four weeks to get to the Persian Gulf, but by the time they got through the Suez Canal, they were pretty well squared away to receive casualties," Stevens says.
In January, just before the war started, the reservists came on board, boosting the ship's crew to 1,200 - with a capacity of treating 1,000 patients.
Stevens marvels at the teamwork.
"Six months to set up a major hospital and then double its capacity in a month and have it in place so it can be functioning is just outstanding," he says. "I think we can be real proud of how well our military can do these things."
He was also impressed by the all-star cast of medical professionals on board.
Just about everyone it seemed was a head of this, a chief of that, at their hospitals back home - and many were from prestigious, big-city hospitals in places such as Boston and New Orleans. Stevens himself is chief of neurosurgery at Community Hospital. "If you took the people on that ship and put it in a 500-bed hospital anywhere in the world, you'd probably have one of the best hospitals anywhere, simply because of experience," he says.
Had Marines made an amphibious landing on the mine-strewn beaches of Kuwait, the casualties would have been treated on the Comfort.
As it turned out, the threatened beach assault was only a ruse to tie down Iraqi defenders - and the ship didn't treat a single combat injury. There were, however, a steady stream of patients with non-combat injuries, from strained backs to ruptured discs to one fractured skull, suffered when a pilot fell off his jet onto the deck of an aircraft carrier.
At least 89 doctors, nurses and other medical personnel from Western Virginia were called up during the Persian Gulf crisis. Most filled in at military hospitals stateside; Stevens may have been the only one sent to the gulf.
But he says he's glad he got the chance.
"It was refreshing to see people come together for a common cause," he says. "It was a pleasure to be involved, to see my fellow man not thinking so much about what this is doing to me. The vast majority were, `let's all pull together and get this ship ready' - and no friction."
Now, he muses, if only American hospitals could be so ship-shape.
He'll set to work on that when he reopens his practice Monday.
by CNB