From the Field: Dr. Laszlo Madaras Honors the Medical Staff who Work in the World As It Is

Mon, 10/09/2017 | by Laszlo Madaras

emergency nurses week - heart around nurses hat

[Editor's note: Our Co-Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Laszlo Madaras, sent over this short missive without the knowledge that this week is Emergency Nurses Week. We'd like to share Dr. Madaras' celebration and appreciation of our fellow clinicians, whose critical work is too often overlooked.]

As a doctor, I have worked with so many kind and excellent nurses over several decades - dedicated, hard workers in the ER, labor+delivery, intensive care, oncology, geriatrics, pediatrics, and non government organization overseas. And they sacrifice so much. One such nurse, our nurse on the Zaire/Rwanda border in the American Refugee Committee (ARC), 22 years ago on an October day like today, at the age of 56, lost her legs to an IED on the road outside Goma. I travelled this road so many times while I worked there in the very same ARC truck pictured here.

article-ARC-Specialists-Injured-in-Landmine-Blast

Photo and publication Fall 1995

I was not there when this happened, but have often thought of her and "there but for the grace of God go I." Now at 56 myself, I think about such sacrifice of life and limb that often goes unheralded. Our military gets honored, as they should, for such sacrifice. Today, as many are working overtime in Las Vegas hospitals, and as many of them pack up to go to Puerto Rico, Mexico, Florida, Texas and elsewhere, I want to thank all our civilian staff, especially those nurses and other health care givers who put themselves in harms way inside and outside the United States, for their service to their patients, to their country and to humanity.