MEET THE MEDICS
Retired U . S . Air Force physician Stanley Chartoff , MD , deployed with Team Rubicon to the Navajo Nation in April . Over the course of three weeks Chartoff served alongside IHS doctors in the ER caring for patients with general illnesses and traumas and also with the coronavirus . Dr . Chartoff appreciated being able to employ the COVID-19 expertise he ’ d recently gained working as an emergency room physician at University of Connecticut ’ s Hartford Hospital . What was more fascinating for Chartoff , however , was how his experience as a doctor in the Air Force served him at the Navajo Nation .
What was your role at the Navajo Nation ? I ' m an emergency physician , so I provided direct medical care as an ER doctor . I assisted the other doctors — the paid doctors who were there with IHS — in taking care of patients . A lot of the regular physicians are more family practice doctors , so they weren ' t quite as familiar with COVID-19 , and especially with really sick patients . I assisted them with the care of those patients , and because of my recent experience in Connecticut , was also able to help them learn more about treating COVID-19 .
Did your experience in the military help in your service at the Navajo Nation ? Actually quite a bit . In the military my role was that of vital care transport doctor . I took care of patients on airplanes as we were transporting them out of Afghanistan and Iraq , so I had a lot of critical care background , which I don ' t get much of now in my primary job . That was particularly true of taking care of ventilators . When I got to Navajo Nation , I discovered they don ' t have any respiratory therapists on staff in their hospital . So , I had to set up and run my own ventilators while I was there . That military training I had really , really helped me .
What was the hardest thing about serving on this operation ? I suppose the emotional aspect of it . The Navajo are such wonderful people , and having to send a lot of them home , especially the ones who weren ' t sick enough to be transported to a hospital , and also knowing that they were going back to not ideal conditions — many told me they live in communal housing with elderly people or in homes without running water — was very hard .
I also cared for a lot of families . I had to intubate a gentleman one day , then two days later I intubated his mother . That ' s not something I am used to seeing .
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