The W

For the first five months of my deployment I worked exclusively in the hospital on the Intensive Care Ward. (I recently moved to the clinic which I will explain later) It's commonly referred to as the ICW or simply The W. I am not sure if there is a place quite like it anywhere else. I have never heard of a section of the hospital being called an intensive care ward. But, here at Bagram it makes sense. The patients on The W are very sick. Essentially, when patients in the Intensive Care Unit come off a ventilator (breathing machine) they are sent to The W. They arrive with jaws wired shut, tracheostomies in place, bowels in discontinuity, limbs amputated, wound vacuums in place, chest tubes on suction, drains in the belly, and external fixators holding bones together. Simply stated, these are complicated, sick patients who are recovering from horrific injuries.


The work done every day on The W is outstanding. It is always busy. There is a constant flow of injured Afghans. And, almost every day a group of American and coalition patients are loaded onto litters and transported out of the hospital onto planes to leave Afghanistan. The hospital beds fill up again in a matter of hours and the entire process begins again. There is rarely a reprive from this. The staff has to be ready to work hard at all times. This can be a real grind to say the least. All of us have felt it. And, each of us has needed to lean on others to survive and stay sane.

The staff I worked with on The W was diverse. There was a large group from Nellis Air Force Base (AFB) in Las Vegas. Travis AFB in northern California is the home station for many others. The nurse manager is from Shaw AFB just up the road from my home station of Charleston AFB in South Carolina. One of our doctors was an Army internist from Heidelburg, Germany. Another doctor is stationed in Japan. Other places represented include Seymour-Johnson AFB in North Carolina, Andrews AFB in Maryland, and Lackland AFB in Texas. We cannot forget our medic from the Idaho Air National Guard as well. I am sure that I have forgotten someone.

On the whole, the staff is quite young with ages mostly in the twenties and some in the thirties. I bet there were a few fortysomethings as well! Some were quite experienced while others are just beginning their careers. Several nurses work on maternity wards back home. Others work in post anesthesia care units and emergency rooms. A few come from clinics much like the one I work at in Charleston. The bottom line is that almost none of us had seen anything like what we have here at Bagram. It was certainly a shock for many of us. The learning curve was steep. Yet, everyone stepped up to the challenge. We did things that we never expected to do and acquired knowledge in areas that will only help us in the long run.

Without a doubt, The W has made its mark. We shined when both the President of the United States and the President of Afghanistan visited us this year. More importantly, we impacted the lives of a heck of a lot of patients. The work is definitely something to remember. But, work is merely one aspect of life. In the end, it is the people that made up The W that really matter.