LUCY SCHULTZE

As one of only two neurosurgeons operating in Iraq and Afghanistan for the U.S. armed forces, the mission for Richard Clatterbuck was treating blast injuries for American soldiers — and their enemies, too.

"When a patient comes into the ER, I take care of them," said Clatterbuck, MD, PhD. A Hattiesburg Clinic physician and U.S. Army reservist, he spent three months this year at the Air Force Theatre Hospital in Balad, Iraq.

"I treated Iraqi security forces, civilians, insurgents and foreign jihadists," he said. "I'm a doctor: I'm not thinking about whether this is a bad guy or a good guy. This is a human being who needs my help."

Even though fewer than 10 percent of his patients were Americans, the challenge of entering the battle zone is one Clatterbuck accepted more as a duty than a choice. It's an outlook inherited from his father, a Korean War veteran who served in the U.S. Army and Air Force, and from his grandfather, a U.S. Navy Seabee during World War II.

"Military service is something I feel is an obligation," he said. "There are young men over there risking their lives on a daily basis, fighting for what they believe and to keep our way of life intact. They need somebody to take care of them, too."

Clatterbuck spent a total of 90 days in Iraq, on loan to the 332 Expeditionary Medical Group from Task Force 261 Spearhead Medics. He returned to the United States in May.

A major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps Reserves, he serves as part of the 1979th Neurosurgical Team, 345th Combat Unit.

He accepted his officer commission in 1995 after completing medical school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., where he also received a doctorate in neuroscience. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Mississippi State University.

Clatterbuck completed an internship and fellowship in general surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by a residency and fellowship in neurological surgery. He also completed a fellowship in neurovascular research at Hunterian Neurological Laboratory and Center for Inherited Neurovascular Disease at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and a cerebrovascular and skull base fellowship at Barrow Neurologic Institute in Phoenix, Ariz.

In his practice at Hattiesburg Clinic and Forrest General Hospital, he operates in spinal- and head-trauma cases as well as brain tumors, degenerative spinal conditions and other common neurologic conditions. While in Iraq, however, more than half of Clatterbuck's operative patients suffered from blast injuries — something more rare in civilian practice.

In the case of his patients there, injuries from bomb blasts often came with both concussion effects due to an explosion's pressure wave, as well as penetrating injuries from vehicle fragments, or worse, other people's body parts.

While the nature of both his work and the environment there were challenging, there was a certain comfort to the normalcy of "doing what you do every day," Clatterbuck said.

Even the hospital setting was not so different from his regular one. Although it lacked an MRI scanner and the capacity for complex radiologic studies, it was equipped with two modern CT scanners, a modern emergency room and operating rooms, an ICU and patient ward.

"Minus the facts that I missed my wife and the creature comforts of home, and that I carried a weapon and wore body armor, and that people would occasionally shoot at you — it wasn't that much different," he said.

His time there also allowed the opportunity to meet with some of the Iraqi doctors who had stayed in the country and were trying to rebuild its healthcare system.

"The entire medical system has been decimated, and physicians have fled for fear of kidnapping or murder," Clatterbuck said. "Hospitals were stripped of anything that could be sold. It's a mess over there."

Clatterbuck had previously been deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, serving at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.

This time, he was away from his practice for a total of four months, including preparation, conditioning and out-processing at U.S. bases and in Kuwait.

While he and his wife, Victoria, were prepared for the loss of income as he stepped away from civilian practice, he hadn't anticipated what he'd find when he returned. While he was gone, both of his partners had chosen to leave the practice and move elsewhere.

"I was in practice several months by myself before I could find a new partner," he said.

Despite the challenges, Clatterbuck considers his experience in Iraq a worthy contribution to both his country's cause and his own personal development.

"It's very difficult to appreciate what we have in this country if it's all you've ever known," he said.

"But to see how people live there, and how war and conflict tears at the very fabric of society, is something that gives you a much better perspective on just how unbelievably good we have it in this country."