Dr. Todd Rasmussen stands in his home office in Rochester, Minn. He is a former combat surgeon who did six tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rasmussen switched to trauma surgery as casualty numbers soared to the highest rates since Vietnam. At first, the way patients arrived within days from the war zone thousands of miles away amazed him. That wore off though, when he realized patients weren't getting care soon enough. By the time they reached the U.S., their wounds were contaminated and sometimes too late to treat without amputation."It's hard to admit we let we let somebody down and that somebody was a U.S.
In past wars, a wound like that would have denied the lower leg blood flow for too long, leaving no option but amputation. On closer inspection though, Rasmussen saw that the front-line doctors had used a temporary shunt in a new way. Essentially, they stuck a plastic straw into the thigh to keep blood flowing around the wound, saving the leg.to Iraq, he worked in tents and saw medics improvising — using cargo straps as tourniquets.
An exterior view of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2009. "They dramatically improved their ability to rehabilitate wounded warriors after being injured. And many of them were able to return to duty and others were able to return home to be with their families and to function for the rest of their careers. Some of them today are members of Congress," he says.A Defense Department internal memo obtained by NPR concluded that outsourcing didn't actually save money but did hurt readiness.