Pediatric Surgeon Describes Experiences in Iraq
Dr. Chris Coppola, a United States Air Force pediatric surgeon twice deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, is forever haunted by the images of war and peril to which he bore witness. Although Dr. Coppola’s charge in Iraq was to care for combat soldiers, he soon found himself caring for children battered and often mutilated in war. With the collapse of the country’s infrastructure, they were arriving at Balad Air Base by the dozens.
Though Dr. Coppola silenced his emotions by day, he could not erase these horrible scenes from his mind as he lay down at night. He passed sleepless nights by writing letters to friends and family, describing the people and events he witnessed, the ones he saw who suffered the most in the throws of war — innocent civilians and children. His letters have been stylized into a New York Times acclaimed memoir, Coppola: A Pediatric Surgeon in Iraq.
“Writing these letters helped somewhat in putting these memories to rest,” reflects Dr. Coppola. “The letters I wrote to pass the sleepless nights found themselves passed among family and friends, to the point where they were eventually being read by hundreds. If I hadn’t written for a few days, I would receive emails asking if I was okay.”
In his book, Dr. Coppola’s interaction with injured Iraqi children and their parents is a prominent theme. In a war zone, children often suffer a large portion of the pain, injury, and death that occur. “Battlegrounds have no boundary lines in Iraq,” says Dr. Coppola. “Where children ought to be running, playing, and carrying on a carefree existence, guerillas battle from street to street, and house to house. When waging war, we must be cognizant of this effect, and prepare responsibly in accordance with this reality. If nothing else, I hope the reflections from my book show that.”
From the book, readers will:
See how children in Iraq, like children in other war zones, suffer a large portion of the pain, injury, and death
Experience Iraq through the eyes of a deployed doctor who put his life in danger while saving soldiers who risked their own
Encounter the individual stories of young patients that Dr. Coppola aided during his time in Iraq: a boy with leishmaniasis, a pseudo-hermaphrodite, a child who sustained head injuries on election day when insurgents detonated a bomb one hundred feet away from a polling station
Realize how the secondary effects of war — displacement from homes, separation from family, and disruption in domestic resources — forever alter the lives of Iraqi families and children
Find a firsthand account of the burden families must shoulder with loved ones away at war — the persistent fear that loved ones will come home injured or killed
Each year at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Dr. Coppola would spend one month serving as a clerk in a military facility. Later, while completing his surgery residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, he conducted research on birth defects and went on medical missions in Haiti and the Amazon.
As the Judson Randolph fellow in pediatric surgery at Children’s National Medical Center, Dr. Coppola operated on children with birth defects and traumatic injuries. Having committed to four years of military service prior to starting medical school, he committed to an additional two years of service to begin this fellowship. Over the next six years, his assignment at Wilford Hall Medical Center found him as the sole military pediatric surgeon for the southwest United States, receiving patients from as far as Japan. He also conducted missions as the surgeon for the only global Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) team in the world, rescuing babies from Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Dr. Coppola was deployed twice to Iraq, assigned to the 332nd Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, Iraq, where many of his patients were seriously wounded children.
By the time he separated from the military, Dr. Coppola had earned the rank of lieutenant colonel. He is currently a pediatric surgeon in Danville, PA, working for Geisinger Health System in Janet Weis Children’s Hospital. He resides there with his wife and three sons, where he enjoys camping, Jeeping, bicycling and running. His articles have been published in numerous medical journals including the Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine and Journal of Pediatric Surgery.
For more information, please visit www.coppolathebook.com. The book is available for purchase at major bookstores nationwide and www.amazon.com.
Updated 02-05-2010
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