Monday, December 04, 2006

DeWitt docs dedicate careers to women, children

When many people think of Army doctors, they conjure up a “M*A*S*H” scenario with docs dressed in scrubs and white lab coats, exchanging witty banter as they scrub for a surgery to save a Soldier, or as they sip martinis over a makeshift table — all while the sounds of war ring off in the distance.

In today’s Global War on Terror, that’s not necessarily a departure, less the witty banter and martinis. Many doctors, of all disciplines, are “scrubbing in” to save war fighters around the clock, in very dangerous conditions, with the all-too-real sounds of war coming much closer than they would like while treating ill and injured Soldiers.

What typically aren’t thought of are Army doctors dedicating more than 30 years of their medical careers to take care of women and children.

Doctors Col. Arthur C. Wittich and retired Col. Charles S. Horn have more than 66 years of combined experience, and are an obstetric-pediatric “tag-team” for the delivery and care of newborns, particularly via cesarean section, at DeWitt Army Community Hospital.

Wittich is an obstetrics and gynecology staff physician who has been at DeWitt since 1995, during which time he has also served as chief of surgery. 

He spent the first four years of his military service as an enlisted Navy corpsman; then left to attend college and medical school. In 1970 he joined the Army Medical Corps, and has since served in 11 Army hospitals all over the world, including a tour as commander at a Combat support Hospital in Honduras. In total, Wittich has 44 years on active duty. 

“I’ve been a full colonel since 1985, longer than most doctors have been in the Army,” said Wittich. “I’ve seen a lot of changes in medicine over the years. For example, as a hospital corpsman in the Navy we did everything, like sharpen and sterilize the instruments; now everything is disposable.”

Wittich has cared for tens of thousands of women, delivered more than 5,000 babies and he has performed more than 1,000 c-sections. According to his colleagues, he has also trained more half of the Army’s obstetricians, including the former North Atlantic Region Military Command Commander, retired Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Farmer.

Wittich was due to retire last month, but just recently learned the secretary of the Army has once again approved his fourth request for a one-year extension.

Horn is also a staff physician at DeWitt, having been stationed here 12 of the last 17 years, most recently as chief of pediatrics, only now he dons a shirt and tie instead of a uniform. He retired from the Army in April after serving 30 years.

Horn specializes in pediatrics and adolescent medicine and he has treated more than 70,000 children — from the children of the newest Soldiers to the child of a past chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff. Although Horn has had many years at DeWitt, he’s also served at 18 different Army, Navy and Air Force clinics, hospitals and medical centers. 

Horn said it was his last assignment in 2005 however, that was the true high point in his career.

“As much as I love pediatrics,” said Horn, “the greatest challenge and greatest rewards came from being the first on-site medical support commander at Fort Dix that oversaw the pre- and post-deployment health of 20,000 Reserve and National Guard Soldiers going to and from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that year.”

The tag-team
Wittich and Horn both feel it was simply good fortune that brought them together as colleagues at Dewitt for the past 10 years, though they had some professional links to each other previously.

Horn received his training in adolescent medicine from a doctor who interned with Wittich, and Horn’s son was delivered at Fort Campbell by one of Wittich’s protégés, who also later became the deputy commander for clinical services at DeWitt when Horn first arrived here.

“And it was just the luck of our career assignments that put us together at DeWitt,” said Wittich. “Our teamwork then began out of necessity, as there is not a large pool of staff physicians here to pull from for taking call for newborn deliveries.”

But it was their shared faith and beliefs, value of family and love of military service that made them close friends, according to Horn.

Their friendship is evident in how they speak of one another and of their wives, who together belong to Fort Belvoir’s Protestant Women of the Chapel. However, it was the simple gesture of a giving a book that truly illustrated the depth of their relationship. 

Horn’s only son is a new second lieutenant in the Air Force and was just selected for jet pilot training. Wittich gave Horn Tom Wolfe’s book, The Right Stuff, which is ironically about a time when military service was unpopular and very dangerous, and yet brave young men still joined and willingly trained to be fighter pilots and astronauts despite the odds. 

It was clear the book meant a lot to Horn, but he joked one reason he enjoys working with Wittich is that it makes him feel young, quickly adding “no one works as hard as Doctor Wittich at this place.”

“We’ve come to be each other’s sounding board and confidants,” said Horn. “In the over 1,000 pregnancies, deliveries and newborns at DeWitt every year, it isn’t always easy for the moms or the babies, and in the challenging situations it is a real blessing to have each other’s experience.”

The two have delivered and cared for hundreds of babies at DeWitt, “too many to remember, but each one important” they agreed. And they have been responsible for establishing many of the guidelines and policies regarding the delivery and care of newborns for DeWitt, especially for the premature babies who unexpectedly arrive.

Why they serve
“Be an Army doctor, not just a doctor in the Army” was the advice given to Horn when he was sworn into the Army in 1975 by his father, a retired infantry colonel who served in Vietnam. In his 30-year career, the elder Horn had seen some doctors who lacked professional bearing and respect for the military as they “did their time.”

When Wittich and Horn each made the decision to go into military medicine, it was before the Army started offering bonuses and incentives to recruit and retain doctors. Both readily agree that it is their love of the medical and military professions — working with and as Soldiers, as “Army doctors” — that kept them serving as long as they have.

“Army medicine is good medicine,” said Wittich, “and although there are good and bad doctors in and out of the Army, the Army has much better control and accountability, and weeds out the bad docs; patients should be grateful.”

In addition to seeing all their patients, Wittich and Horn have been involved daily in training the Army’s newest physicians in DeWitt’s graduate medical education program in family medicine.

Every year DeWitt brings six new interns into the three-year residency here. Every year senior residents take exams to become the Army’s next generation of board-certified family practitioners.

“These doctors leave here as good, well-trained Army doctors,” said Wittich.

“We receive [thanks] from former residents for giving them the necessary experience in obstetrics and pediatrics, and for teaching them to be good leaders, good officers,” said Wittich.

They both agree medicine has changed a great deal over their tenures, and although much more technical on one hand, and administrative on the other – with managed care enrollment, TRICARE, and the new electronic medical records, they both still very much enjoy what they are doing at DeWitt.

“I love my work and am honored to do it, and will continue to do it as long as they will let me,” said Wittich. Horn echoed, “As long as we can do it carefully and cheerfully, and treat each patient as we would want someone to treat our parents, our wives, our children and, in Dr. Wittich’s case, our grandchildren, we are doing what is right for our military families who deserve no less.”

Wittich and Horn both agree that it is the people they work with in this hospital, and the organization of the DeWitt Health Care Network that still makes this a great place to practice medicine, in or out of uniform. But they clearly show that it is the patients who are their priority and their purpose that make it truly rewarding for them – every day and every delivery.

Editor’s note: Jennifer Albert is the public affairs officer for the DeWitt Health Care Network.