Louisville Medicine Volume 62, Issue 6 | Page 35

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT PETER G. DEVEAUX, MD Aaron Burch Editor’s Note: Welcome to Louisville Medicine’s Member Spotlight section. We’ll be highlighting interesting and exceptional GLMS physicians on a regular basis beginning this month with Dr. Peter Deveaux. B efore arriving in Louisville last September, Peter G. Deveaux, MD, had been all over the world. Now he’s settled down in Derby City with his wife, Lynn, and four sons for what must be one of the more relaxing periods of his career. He’s served 14 years in the military and been deployed six times to some of the most tumultuous places on earth, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and more. Once you’ve been shot at while attempting and succeeding at lifesaving trauma surgery, the University of Louisville becomes a drastic change of pace. Though he hangs his hat in this new place, Dr. Deveaux’s sense of duty to his fellow man hasn’t changed. Born in Boston, Dr. Deveaux moved to Dubuque County, Iowa, the setting of Kevin Costner’s famous Field of Dreams, where he grew up with two younger sisters before finishing high school and heading to the University of Iowa. The pursuit of a surgical career led Dr. Deveaux to Chicago Medical School, now known as Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. In addition to his ambition to become a surgeon, Dr. Deveaux also pursued a Master’s Degree in Pathology. “I thought it would make me a better doctor if I understood pathology,” said Dr. Deveaux, who went on to Loyola University for his General Surgery residency, where he married Lynn, his wife of 18 years, in Oak Park, Illinois. “Things were so kinetic then. We got married, had a week to honeymoon, and I went back to residency.” Throwing himself into his medical career, Dr. Deveaux accepted a U.S. Army scholarship to pay for his time in college. When he graduated from Loyola University, he began his three-year obligation as an army general surgeon. However, three years was just the beginning. “Medicine is really the only thing I ever wanted to do. You get to hang around smart people and help others, learn new things and understand the human body; there’s nothing better,” he said. “I went up to Fort Wainwright, Alaska, where I was a general surgeon,” said Dr. Deveaux. “I loved my time in Alaska. There were only two of us, two surgeons. And it was so physically beauti- ful. I could see Mt. McKinley from my office. I had moose in my backyard. I could see the Northern Lights every night.” A turn of fate would soon exchange the snow and cold of Alaska for the desert sands of Afghanistan. When planes hit the World Trade Center and the war in Afghanistan began, Dr. Deveaux was part of the second forward surgical team deployed. For six months, from July to December 2002, Dr. Deveaux lived in Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan, and took care of a wide variety of traumatic injuries and general surgeries. “I think those experiences made me a lot more confident. When you’re deployed and you see really devastating trauma, and you see a lot of it, you don’t become numb to it but you begin to process it differently,” said Dr. Deveaux. “I try to turn everything into a technical problem. ‘Okay, this guy has no legs. How am I going to stop the bleeding and establish priorities?’ I didn’t become numb but I was able to step back and say ‘This is a technical problem.’ ” Despite the responsibilities of the work he was doing, Dr. Deveaux enjoyed his time in the country. “I liked Afghanistan better than other places. I thought the people were beautiful and dignified. The landscape was amazing, rugged and austere,” he said. During his experience, he worked closely with local national physicians and spent time caring for both coalition forces and locals. There were a few small moments of combat nearby, but Dr. Deveaux explained these as minimal compared to his later deployments. “We really didn’t move around much. We were rocketed a couple times, mortared once. Not a big deal.” When his first deployment came to an end, Dr. Deveaux visited Louisville for the first time where he was accepted to U of L for a Colorectal Fellowship in 2003-04. However, it wasn’t long before he was headed back overseas. (continued on page 34) NOVEMBER 2014 33