Vim & Vigor - Summer 2015 - Phelps County Regional Medical Center - (Page 7)

Brian Kriete, MD, and his family on his graduation day. PHOTO BY THINKSTOCK The Path to Medical School Dr. Kriete's military career began while he was completing his junior year at the University of Missouri-Columbia. "I was in the process of applying for medical school and was concerned about how I was going to pay for it," says Dr. Kriete. "I received a letter in the mail about the health professions scholarship program oﬀered through the United States military. The military would pay for me to attend any school of my choice, and in return, I would owe the military four years of service upon the completion of my medical training." Dr. Kriete was sworn in as an oﬃcer in the U.S. Army in December 2000. "I began medical school at St. Louis University in the fall of 2001, and I was in my ﬁrst month of school, studying anatomy, when the 9/11 terror attacks occurred," he says. "I remember thinking about where I would be deployed and the eﬀect my deployment would have on my family." Once Dr. Kriete completed medical school in May 2005, he started his residency at Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) in San Antonio, Texas. BAMC is the U.S. Department of Defense's only burn center and is designed to care for combat casualties. "My clinical rotations in the burn unit occurred during the height of the Global War on Terrorism," he says. "The burn unit held 15-16 beds, which were always full, and my colleagues and I treated the most critically injured patients I have seen to date. The majority of these patients had been involved in improvised explosive device (IED) blasts, and most had 50 percent or more of total body, third-degree surface burns. These patients endured numerous surgeries, skin grafts, rehabilitation, and often, extremity amputations." A New Career Dr. Kriete spent ﬁve years working at BAMC, the ﬁrst year in general surgery and the next four in ENT facial trauma. "Many times, these wounded service members would have a photo placed above their beds of what they looked like prior to being injured, and most were unrecognizable. My time in the burn unit was a very eye-opening and humbling experience, one that has shaped my medical career to this day. While I helped treat these heroes, I was overwhelmed by their strength and the strength of their family members. These patients were ﬁghting for their lives, and their family members were there every day to encourage and support them," Dr. Kriete says. In 2007, the U.S. increased troop deployments to Iraq to battle the growing insurgency. "We saw another increase in casualties during this time because of the sheer number of service members in combat," Dr. Kriete says. "However, the U.S. military had made considerable advancements to body armor and vehicles, so the vast majority of the injuries we were seeing were isolated to the extremities, or were ENT-related and isolated to the head and neck." SUMME R 2015 7

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Vim & Vigor - Summer 2015 - Phelps County Regional Medical Center