Dr. Coppola stands at the doorway of OR 1 at the 332nd Air Force Theater Hospital, January, 2007. During periods of heightened threat medical personnel were required to carry their weapon at all times, including during surgery.
Dr. Chris Coppola was sworn in as a second lieutenant in 1990 as part of the Air Force’s Health Professions Scholarship Program, agreeing to perform six years of active duty service in exchange for a free education at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. As part of the program, Dr. Coppola would spend one month of each year serving as a clerk in a military facility. Later, while completing his surgery residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, he conducted research on birth defects and went on medical missions in Haiti and the Amazon.
As the Judson Randolph fellow in pediatric surgery at Children’s National Medical Center, Dr. Coppola operated on children with birth defects and traumatic injuries. His assignment at Wilford Hall Medical Center found him as the sole military pediatric surgeon for the southwest United States, receiving patients from as far as Japan. He also conducted missions as the surgeon for the only global Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) team in the world, rescuing babies from Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
Following his assignment at Wilford Hall, Dr. Coppola was deployed twice to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, assigned to the 332nd Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, Iraq, where many of his patients were seriously wounded children.
A staff member securing the belongings of an injured Iraqi civilian holds a bundle of bloody Dinar notes in the ER of the 332nd Air Force Theatre Hospital.
He is currently a pediatric surgeon in Danville, PA, working for Geisinger Health System in Janet Weis Children’s Hospital. His articles have been published in many prestigious medical journals including the Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine and Journal of Pediatric Surgery.
In support of the book’s release, publisher NTI Upstream will donate a portion of the online sales to various non-profit organizations. These organizations share common themes of the book, such as medical aid, child relief and military troop and family care.
