Lt. Col. Raymond Fang
Air Force surgeon brings calm-yet-serious demeanor to Landstuhl
LANDSTUHL, Germany — Civilian trauma surgeons routinely treat and save the lives of society’s worst citizens — wounded drug dealers, drunken drivers and cop killers.
Trauma surgeons at Landstuhl routinely treat and save the lives of a nobler breed.
The satisfaction of caring for wounded troops has Dr. Raymond Fang, an Air Force lieutenant colonel and Landstuhl surgeon, considering extending his assignment at the hospital past September 2008.
“If you’re a trauma surgeon here, everyone you’re taking care of is someone that’s doing what they need to do for the U.S.,” Fang said. “They’ve been told to go there. They’re doing their job when they get injured. Back home doing the same job, you’re taking care of people who got drunk and crashed their car, taking care of people who got shot. There are innocent victims, too, but a lot of the people who are trauma victims in the States do it to themselves. I think the level of satisfaction in taking care of these guys versus those people is a lot of it.”
The motivation keeps Fang working 80-hour weeks. Serving his rotation as trauma team leader in Landstuhl’s intensive care unit. Researching records for the advancement of medicine. Sitting through hours of meetings. Doing rounds. Assessing patients. Performing surgeries.
On an August day, Fang maintained his calm, measured voice, raising it only once when asking a sedated patient in the hospital’s intensive care unit to give him a “thumbs up” with each hand. The soldier, who had recently arrived after a medevac flight, complied. Even as nurses scurried around him, Fang dutifully studied a patient’s chart at a small desk outside the room.
A doctor on a fellowship recently told Fang that he did not seem like the kind of person to yell at people or try to make them feel bad. The doctor said Fang struck him as someone who would rather tell people he was really disappointed with them and expected more from them.
Others notice Fang’s calm, serious approach and demeanor.
“My wife’s a doc, too,” he said. “She’ll say she can see me doing a code on somebody, and it would be no different.”
“Code” is hospital-speak for a patient in danger of dying immediately.
Later that August day, Fang scrubbed in as one of five surgeons preparing to treat a wounded soldier. The 23-year-old, wounded from a blast in Iraq, lost his left leg at the knee and suffered significant wounds to his right leg and left arm. Fang and another doctor performed abdominal surgery while the other surgeons worked on his left leg, right leg and left arm. Not long into the procedure, Fang asked for a towel, something to stand on. The floor beneath him had become slippery.
The surgery went well and lasted an hour and a half. After the surgery, around 7 p.m., Fang sat at a computer for dinner — a hamburger and a bag of Doritos, fetched for the staff from the hospital’s organization day.
