By Christiana SchmitzThe Daily Northwestern
Six months ago Martin Lucenti Jr. was an emergency room doctor in Baghdad treating injuries ranging from roadside bombs to burns and shrapnel wounds.
Today he sees rollerblading injuries and twisted ankles as director of clinical operations for the Department of Emergency Medicine at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Lucenti has been to Iraq three times since joining NU’s faculty in 2003. He arrived home last August from a seven-month tour that began in southern Iraq and ended with four months at the 10th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad.
“When they realized I’m an emergency medical doctor, they extended (my contract) and assigned me to an active-duty hospital that is the main combat support hospital right in Baghdad,” Lucenti said.
There, Lucenti worked on critically ill patients sent from throughout Iraq. Although the experience at times was depressing, he said, it also was surprisingly rewarding.
“For me, it’s doing what I like to do,” Lucenti said. “It’s like the nirvana of emergency care.”
Lucenti traded eight years of guard time for an undergraduate education at the University of Virginia and an eventual M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. Now, even after his eight years, Lucenti continues to serve in the Vermont National Guard.
“I’ve completed my obligations,” said Lucenti, who also is an assistant professor at Feinberg. “I’m (still) in this because I believe it’s a worthy thing to do.”
Lucenti said working in Baghdad was the ultimate payoff for all his work in medical school. He said the work he did in Iraq was exactly what he had gone to school for and what he said he always wanted to do – “to make those differences.”
“I love taking care of patients and being part of that moment when they need help,” Lucenti said.
While he acknowledged that it was hard to leave his wife and two children – especially after they had moved to Evanston and away from his parents in Boston – Lucenti said his family is used to his not being around as much.
“I’m kind of a workaholic,” he joked.
Gen. Martin Lucenti Sr. said his son always has been very committed to his work.
“He’s got an awful lot of energy,” said the elder Lucenti, who recently retired from the Vermont National Guard. “He’s aggressive and he’s creative.”
Lucenti Jr. said his high-tempo, fast-paced emergency room mentality fit right in with the environment at the hospital in Baghdad.
“You’ve basically got a whole bunch of people there that live for work,” he said. “There’s nothing else to do.”
Jackie Sostarics, program coordinator of Feinberg’s Emergency Medical Residency program, works with Lucenti and said Lucenti still is just as dedicated to work at home.
“He’s always there to help out when you need him,” Sostarics said. “Even if it’s the last second.”
Lucenti said returning to a setting where co-workers have priorities beyond the emergency room was a huge adjustment.
“It’s hard to come back and be in a world that’s not as completely committed to the mission,” Lucenti said. “War is one of those places where you see both the best and worst of people.”
“Being over there doesn’t give you any more insight as to how to solve (political problems),” he said. “You just get an insight to the consequences of the decisions.”
According to Lucenti, “85 percent of Iraqis will tell you they don’t want us there, but only 15 percent will say they want us to leave.”
The only thing he said he knew for certain was that “in the time that I’ve been there, things have gotten worse and worse.”
“The big thing to realize is there’s a lot of troops making amazing sacrifices,” he said.
Reach Christiana Schmitz at [email protected].
