Army doctor stays positive after seeing horrors of war

Dr. Sudip Bose treats a wounded soldier in Najaf, Iraq. Bose spent 15 months as an Army doctor during the Iraq war. That’s one of the longest deployments of a military physician since World War II. (Supplied photo)

Army doctor stays positive after seeing horrors of war


June 5, 2009

By Maura Possley, Staff Writer
He was alongside U.S. forces in Najaf, Iraq, as they fought the Al-Sadr militia.

He was there as troops seized the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

In his 15 months as an Army doctor in Iraq - one of the longest deployments of a military physician since World War II - Dr. Sudip Bose saw the worst humanity can offer.

His tour treating thousands of servicemen and women fighting in the war was spent on those front lines or at the scene of a raid or injury as part of what's called the Quick Reaction Force in the 1st Calvary Division.

He's also treated one of the most notorious men to walk the earth - Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq convicted and hanged and one reason the United States invaded the country.

Today, four years after Bose returned from duty, he serves on a different sort of front line in the emergency room at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn as its attending emergency physician.

When he's not reacting to trauma in Christ's emergency room, Bose is out speaking here and across the country in hospitals, schools and churches about a rising need for awareness on post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Even if you come back 'uninjured', you can have mental abrasions that can be worse - these are the things that go unrecognized," the doctor said. "It's tough to reintegrate into a modern world after being in a zone where you're just concerned about surviving; soldiers sometimes feel detached, indifferent and even frustrated with 'problems' we have here."
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