Soldiers get battle-ready in El Paso operating rooms

A partnership between the military, El Paso’s University Medical Center and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center brings dozens of Army orthopedic surgeons to El Paso.

The training that the surgeons receive in the operating rooms at UMC helps prepare them to treat soldiers wounded in combat operations overseas.

ABC-7 was allowed to watch an operation at UMC in which the resident assisting the attending surgeon and the anesthesiologist were both students and soldiers.

They are part of a group of nearly two dozen military members who get hands-on, trauma surgery training at the area’s only Level One trauma center.

It is the largest Army residency program in the nation and the only one to mix military and civilian surgeons in the operating room, according to Col. Mark Pallis, chair of the orthopedic department at William Beaumont Army Medical Center.

“Our residents are picked among the best in the Army,” Pallis said. “Our military folks fit in extremely well because … everybody is dedicated to do the very best that they can to take care of our injured patients, (and) we look at our job that way.”

“It’s a huge advantage and it prepares us better than any other training situation I can imagine,” orthopedic resident Maj. Brendan McCriskin said. He is stationed at William Beaumont Army Medical Center, but spends about half his time scrubbing in on trauma surgeries at UMC.

“A lot of the polytrauma patients who have been involved in motorcycle collisions or motor vehicle collisions often have devastating extremity injuries,” McCriskin said. “We really become pretty comfortable managing those.”

Almost to emphasize McCriskin’s point, the surgery that ABC-7 observed was to repair serious, but not life-threatening injuries suffered in a car crash. The surgeons who repaired the patient’s wrist and facial bones said they are injuries similar to what they see in conflicts overseas.

Attending orthopedic surgeon Gilbert Gonzalez told ABC-7 that the difference between the soldier surgeons and the civilian surgical residents is palpable.

“These guys are on a different level of their training,” Gonzalez said. “They’ve been doing this for 10 years and … are very knowledgeable, and very reliable. It’s very different working with Army residents. Their attitudes are so different.”

The Army’s orthopedic residency program has been in El Paso since 1989.

Watch the report on ABC-7 at 5 on Wednesday.