A New Outlook Dr. Robert Handy’s Army Experiences Have Given Him A Global Perspective

In today’s Army, engaged as heavily as it is, military personnel expect to be sent across the globe at a moment’s notice.
For 14 years, Dr. Robert Handy lived that life as an Army surgeon, including a seven-month stint as commander of the 102nd Forward Surgical Team in Afghanistan this past year.

It’s quite a contrast to quiet Florence, where he has begun civilian life as the newest member of New England Orthopedic Surgeons, trading in his stop-start military career for normal hours as a total joint surgeon.

He wouldn’t trade in those 14 years, however, which opened his eyes to medical conditions overseas and “the degrees of human suffering.” In that light, Handy told The Healthcare News, the United States isn’t a bad place at all to receive medical care — even as he did what he could to make a difference overseas.
Seeing the World.

Handy attended Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia in the late 1980s on an Army scholarship, tying him to the military for the next decade-plus. He noted that, since the size of the military has been shrinking since the late 1980s, overseas engagements for personnel have not, and there has been no shortage of obligations for soldiers and doctors alike.
From 1996 to 2000, Lt. Col. Handy was stationed in Germany, a stint broken up by a stay in Bosnia starting in 1996, serving as a general surgeon at an Army hospital, treating soldiers and also giving humanitarian aid.

Then, after working a fellowship in general surgery at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, then a two-year hip-and-knee-replacement fellowship at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., Handy was called last August to Afghanistan.

His role was to head up the 102nd Forward Surgical Team, a 20-member unit based at Kandahar Airfield and made up of one orthopedic surgeon (himself), three general surgeons, three nurses — one each from the emergency room, operating room, and intensive care unit settings — two anesthesiologists, 11 medics, and an administrator.

He called the team a self-contained unit, but one that was limited in its ability to care for patients in more than the short term. So the goal was to perform life-saving surgery as necessary and stabilize injuries, then ship soldiers to the nearest Army hospital.
Still, the mission was as humanitarian in its scope as Handy’s work in Bosnia, meaning that, while the team’s main responsibility was to American and coalition forces, there were plenty of Afghan citizens who needed their help as well — and it was freely given.

In one instance, the team used some creativity to save the infected limbs of two Afghan children when Handy mixed powdered antibiotics with medical cement, then implanted the antibiotic ‘beads’ into the arm of a 12-year-old boy, and a small block of the mixture into the leg of a 5-year-old girl.

The boy had been brought to the airfield after a Special Forces medic in Deh Rawood lanced a scab on his elbow and found a mass of draining pus.
Handy’s team discovered that the boy’s infection had spread to his chest wall and shoulder joint and throughout his arm. Multiple surgeries were required to wash out the wound and clean out the dead tissue.

The girl had already been to Pakistan for surgery, but the infection remained, and her tibia bone had become reinfected and broke. Without surgical attention by Handy’s staff, she might have lost her leg, he said.

During his entire time in the region, Handy’s team performed 110 surgeries, mostly for penetrating trauma — gunshots or knife wounds — or blast injuries, mainly from mines. Sadly, he said, Afghanistan is the most heavily mined country in the world.

“A lot of kids would find these small anti-personnel mines,” Handy said. “They might be collecting metal to bring to their family to buy bread, and they’d reach down to pick up a piece of metal, and it would blow up in their hand.”

Anti-tank mines are a different — and sadder — story, he said; no one survives those to be treated.

Although the humanitarian work does not depend on the reception the coalition receives from Afghans, he added, it is encouraging to see the positive response.

“Why we’re here and why what we’re doing is important can be summed up by what our patients are saying, and what they are going back and telling their villages,” Handy told the Desert Devil Dispatch, a newsletter for servicepeople at Kandahar Airfield, earlier this year.

“One 50-year-old gentleman said, ‘before I’d met any Americans, I just hated all Americans.’

“By the time he left here, he said he would like to carry us around on his head because he was so happy with the treatment he got. He promised to go back to his village and tell everyone how good the Americans are.”

Coming Home

No one doubts the superiority of American medicine over what is available in poorer countries — particularly war-torn regions — and, when it comes to his work back in the States, Handy is particularly interested in the advancing field of joint replacement.

“It’s one of the best procedures in medicine,” he said. “It’s a great procedure for what the goal is, which is pain relief. It’s a surgery with a success rate of 90{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} 20 years out.
“There are few things that work well after 20 years,” he added. “Look at your car. Look at the roof on your house. For people who need this, it’s a great procedure.”

Still, one reason Handy feels like he’s found a long-term home is that his work at New England Orthopedic Surgeons will go beyond joint replacements to encompass a more general range of procedures, a facet of the job that attracted him.

Forward surgical teams have been rotating into and out of Kandahar Airfield since Handy left. And although he appreciates the world perspective that his military service gave him — particularly in being able to see the difference in human needs between America and a war-torn country with only one hospital — he’s ready for a new life. Having two young children is reason enough to stop globetrotting at a moment’s notice.
Still, “I really enjoyed the military,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.”

During his entire time in the region, Handy’s team performed 110 surgeries, mostly for penetrating trauma — gunshots or knife wounds — or blast injuries, mainly from mines. Sadly, he said, Afghanistan is the most heavily mined country in the world.

“A lot of kids would find these small anti-personnel mines,” Handy said. “They might be collecting metal to bring to their family to buy bread, and they’d reach down to pick up a piece of metal, and it would blow up in their hand.”

Anti-tank mines are a different — and sadder — story, he said; no one survives those to be treated.

Although the humanitarian work does not depend on the reception the coalition receives from Afghans, he added, it is encouraging to see the positive response.

“Why we’re here and why what we’re doing is important can be summed up by what our patients are saying, and what they are going back and telling their villages,” Handy told the Desert Devil Dispatch, a newsletter for servicepeople at Kandahar Airfield, earlier this year.

“One 50-year-old gentleman said, ‘before I’d met any Americans, I just hated all Americans.’

“By the time he left here, he said he would like to carry us around on his head because he was so happy with the treatment he got. He promised to go back to his village and tell everyone how good the Americans are.”

Coming Home

No one doubts the superiority of American medicine over what is available in poorer countries — particularly war-torn regions — and, when it comes to his work back in the States, Handy is particularly interested in the advancing field of joint replacement.

“It’s one of the best procedures in medicine,” he said. “It’s a great procedure for what the goal is, which is pain relief. It’s a surgery with a success rate of 90{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} 20 years out.
“There are few things that work well after 20 years,” he added. “Look at your car. Look at the roof on your house. For people who need this, it’s a great procedure.”

Still, one reason Handy feels like he’s found a long-term home is that his work at New England Orthopedic Surgeons will go beyond joint replacements to encompass a more general range of procedures, a facet of the job that attracted him.

Forward surgical teams have been rotating into and out of Kandahar Airfield since Handy left. And although he appreciates the world perspective that his military service gave him — particularly in being able to see the difference in human needs between America and a war-torn country with only one hospital — he’s ready for a new life. Having two young children is reason enough to stop globetrotting at a moment’s notice.

Still, “I really enjoyed the military,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.”