Maj. Robert Eller and Maj. Paul DeFlorio

Paul DeFlorio and Robert Eller are young physicians, only a few years out of medical school. But they both say they have experienced the highlight of their careers.

The two Vanderbilt University School of Medicine alumni are physicians at the Air Force Theater Hospital at the U.S. Air Force base in Balad, Iraq, about 30 miles north of Baghdad. The pair, along with a team of about 30 physicians, treat up to 500 patients a month, about half of them trauma victims.

As Robertson’s role as president of the AHA was winding down in 2002, another post became open on the national level that would require a leave of absence from Vanderbilt. In 2003 she was named chief science officer at the AHA. It was an opportunity that would allow Robertson to continue to make a difference in public health policy – something that meshes her interest in both clinical care and patient-oriented research.

Neither would have it any other way.

For Maj. DeFlorio, M.D., an emergency room physician at Wilford Hall Medical Center on Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, the assignment to the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group is his second tour. continued..