PHYSICIANS ON THE FRONT LINE
FROM AIR FORCE FLIGHT SURGEON TO FAMILY
MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH
AUTHOR Lori Caloia, MD
M
y decision to enter the military
was multifaceted. I had grown up
in St. Clair Shores, Mich., near
the Selfridge Air National Guard
Base. I remember seeing F-16s fly-
ing over Lake St. Clair and would
think to myself, “I want to fly one
of those someday.” I considered attending the
Air Force Academy, but I received a full-ride
scholarship at the University of Detroit where I could play softball,
so I decided to put the military on hold.
Fast forward to my junior year of college when I came to the
realization that I would have to find some way to pay for medical
school if I actually got accepted. I found out about the Health
Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP) and decided to apply. I
received a scholarship, which not only paid for medical school but
also provided a stipend each month for living expenses. In my second
year of medical school, the 9/11 tragedy struck, and I remember
thinking that many, many people’s lives had been changed by the
day’s events. I knew that my life would be one of them—the experi-
ence of the military physician would now be dramatically different
than it had been in the post-Vietnam and post-Desert Storm era.
I was 25 when I finished medical school and was certain I did
NOT know where my next chapter in life was headed. I had enjoyed
every rotation in medical school and considered the OB/GYN and
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
surgical fields but wasn’t totally sure that either was what I wanted
to do for the rest of my life. Luckily, the military allowed me to
complete a transitional year at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San
Antonio, Texas, in order to figure out my next path.
I thought the experience, at what was then the largest Air Force
Hospital in the country, would afford me a few more months to
decide on a residency. But when my application was ready to be
turned in, I found I needed more time to explore future medical
careers. Thankfully, as part of my HPSP experience, I had attended
a month-long Introduction to Flight Medicine course between my
first and second years of medical school. I decided to take the plunge
and scheduled an appointment for my flight physical.
Once that was complete, I was able to apply for my first assign-
ment in the Air Force. I was instructed to complete a list of 20 pos-
sible assignments in rank order. I debated between choosing great
locations and the highest-tech airplanes when making my list, and
my list ended up a hodge-podge of both. Fate was ultimately the
deciding factor--I received my 17 th choice for assignment! Without
realizing it at the time, I ended up at a base that was perhaps one of
the coolest possible for a flight surgeon: we flew F15-Es, the Strike
Eagle. The Strike Eagle is a two-seat, two engine fighter jet that was
designed to fight its way into a target, drop bombs, and fight its way
out. Having a backseat means that it is also a good place for a flight
doc to get some actual mission time.
Though being a flight surgeon entailed flying (what most people