Prior to medicine, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so I joined the United States Air Force as a firefighter after high school. While I was stationed in Abilene, Texas, at Dyess Air Force Base, I had the opportunity to go to Kuwait for several months to be a firefighter. During my time as a firefighter, an internal medicine doctor in Kuwait, who was also in the military, mentored me as a firefighter and taught me some medical things. I think that’s when I decided to pursue medicine. At first, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a doctor. I was considering training as a PA or a paramedic. After a lot of thought and conversations with my wife, we decided that going to medical school to become a physician was the best decision for me to impact as many people as possible. First, I needed to finish college and get accepted into medical school. After four years as a firefighter in the Air Force, I went to Texas Lutheran University (TLU) to finish college.
One of the defining themes for me during my time in college and medical school was struggle. Struggle defined our family’s life. After the Air Force, we bought a mobile home and lived in New Braunfels, TX. I worked full-time as an ER technician at Guadalupe Valley Hospital while I was going to school at TLU. I was also doing research in organic chemistry and studying for the MCAT at the time. The pace of life was busy, almost untenable, and hard. My first daughter, Avery, was born in 1997 before I got out of the Air Force, so she was a young child during this period. While we were living in New Braunfels, my wife and I became pregnant with our son, Braden. He was born at University Hospital in 1999. I was an MS1 at the Long School of Medicine at the time. I was in the OB department with my wife when our son was born, and then two years later, I was rotating in OB in the same area where our son was born. It was cool. Medical school was quite challenging, especially with having young children, but having a family was also a huge benefit. They provided a break from school and a reason to keep going. At home, I played with my kids and spent time with my wife between all the studying.
Mentorship
It was important to me to pass on the mentorship that I had received on my path to becoming a physician. It is important to receive mentorship, but it is also important to give mentorship to others along the way. A mentor can help provide input into important decisions, and as you learn and grow, you can hopefully pass on wisdom and insight to others as well. As an MS1, I volunteered to mentor a young student in Northside School District in San Antonio. His name was Gabriel. I would go to his school once a week and read with him. We developed a close relationship over the school year. During the second year that I was mentoring him, Gabriel was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. From then on, my visits with Gabriel were mostly at Christus Santa Rosa. We would meet and I would read him books and we would talk about life. It was tough when Gabriel passed away. Gabriel was an incredible kid and I was honored to know him and his family. But it was pretty devastating to see such a young kid struggle with cancer. Being Gabriel’s mentor solidified my desire to help hurting people and to be the best doctor that I could be for my patients.
I am grateful to the UT Health San Antonio institution because it’s given me so much. I have quite the history here. I learned medicine here and my son, Braden, was born here. My daughter, Avery, is currently a medical student here. During my medical school years, when money was tight, I was also awarded the presidential scholarship here. So, after I retired from the Air Force last year, I ended up coming back to UT Health to do my best to give back, teach medical students and residents and to treat vulnerable patients. It is an honor for me to come back to UT Health to teach after all that I have received from this great institution.
Serving in the Air Force
I was awarded the Health Profession Scholarship Program from the Air Force while I was in medical school. In return, I served in the Air Force on active duty for four years after residency. After medical school, I was accepted to the active-duty ER residency at Brooke Army Medical Center/Wilford Hall with the San Antonio Uniform Services Health Education Consortium. I completed three years in Emergency Medicine training here in San Antonio. Residency was a blur. Life goes by very quickly. You go to work and work as hard as you can, and then you go home to sleep and back to work again. There is not really a lot left to give for family or anything else. Part of my residency training included coming back to University Hospital and working both in the ER and in trauma. I remember working as a second year in the PIT and trauma, with a schedule of 24 hours on/ 24 hours off for an entire month. I really appreciate the experience and the training that I received here. I saw so many trauma patients and my skills improved from working so much and seeing so many patients. My residency experience was great preparation for my future military career. In 2006, I graduated from residency and moved to Travis Air Force Base in California, where I worked as the ER director at David Grant Medical Center. While I was stationed there, I was deployed as part of a medical team to a hospital in Afghanistan. I was there for four months. When you go to a place like that, you want to be fully prepared for what you will experience. But no amount of preparation and training can completely prepare you for the experience of serving at a military hospital in a war zone.
I remember my first day on duty while deployed to Afghanistan. My patient was an Afghan civilian that was working for the United Nations De-Mining Commission. Outside the gates of our base, in an area full of thousands and thousands of landmines, this Afghan man had accidentally stepped on a landmine. The landmine blew his leg off and medics brought him to me with a makeshift tourniquet on what was left of his leg. He was pale from the loss of blood and shock. For a second, I was like “Oh my gosh! This is crazy!”. But then my training kicked in and I began treating him, and took him to the resuscitation bay. He eventually recovered, but the blast blew out both his eyes and one of his legs. That was the first day. It was very tough, but in a place like that, even when you are not working or on duty, you still go to work because you want to contribute and help. So, I was there every day working. We saw lots of traumas involving Americans, Afghans, and coalition forces. It was a real honor to be able to work in an environment like that, taking care of people who were blown up, shot, or injured in some way. It was incredible and humbling to be part of a team of health care providers that was so good at what they did.
That has probably been the most professionally satisfying experience of my career and impacted my decision to stay in the military a bit longer than planned, even though I had promised my wife I would only serve until my initial commitment was fulfilled. My experience I had in Afghanistan and during my other overseas deployments, contributed to my desire to continue in the military and to serve my patients to the best of my abilities in that environment. I talked to my wife and we agreed for me to stay a little longer in the Air Force-which ultimately led to retirement from the Air Force.