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I like the chaos, disorder, lack of rules, and pitfalls that surround you in disaster medicine,” says


Fuller, an International Medical Corps volunteer who has worked in Haiti, Indonesia, and the West Indies, as well as at Ground Zero in New York just after the 9/11 attacks. “I find those environments to be stimulating, challenging, and rewarding.” Making sense out of the chaos that ensues after a disaster is “a bit


of an art form,” Fuller says. “Medicine is not about having a patient sit on a clean white towel while you perfectly place a suture. It’s about preventing death.” So his goal is “to make medicine happen,” even if everything around him is falling apart.


IN MANY WAYS, FULLER LEADS TWO LIVES.


He is head of emergency medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center and an associate professor of traumatology and emer- gency medicine. But he’s also a volunteer with International Medical Corps, a humanitarian organization that deploys doctors to disas- ter-ravaged areas to provide health care relief. He’s on call to assist with the next major disaster —no matter what


part of the world it might hit. He has a “go bag” packed, with high-cal- orie bars, a water filter, a mosquito net, and other necessities to help him get by for a handful of days. When Fuller set out to become a doctor, he didn’t know which path


he would follow. But while in his fourth year at Loyola’s Stritch School of Medicine, he took advantage of an opportunity to do a rotation at St. Jude Hospital in St. Lucia, a Caribbean island. That gave him a taste of the hard work and unpredictability of emergency medicine. He realized it was the direction he wanted to take his career. Fuller recalls that the hours were long at St. Jude, but he was


energized by the work. When it came time to leave, he promised the staff he’d return. They told him, “Everyone says that, and no one ever does.” But true to his word, Fuller went back to St. Lucia at the end of his


residency training, along with his wife and 15-month-old daughter. He spent nearly a year working on a volunteer basis as director of the emergency department. Some people thought he was crazy to take an unpaid position for


his first real job as a doctor. But he says the needs were great, and he really got into the work. He helped improve services and expanded emergency care to 24 hours. When Fuller left St. Lucia and joined the University of Connecticut,


he continued to bring his students to St. Jude to learn about tropical medicine. Today he is director of the hospital’s Tropical/Third-World Emergency Medicine elective. Fuller says his work in St. Lucia taught him important skills, such as


how to be flexible and do the best job possible without all the nec- essary supplies. These skills would aid him in the disaster situations he would encounter years later, starting with the 9/11 attacks on New York City. Fuller, a former paramedic, was directing his hospital’s paramedics


at the time and had been stepping up their emergency-response training. When 9/11 happened, the New York Fire Department requested assistance, so Fuller asked hospital administrators to send his team. They told him to take anything he needed—medications, equipment, even a fire truck. “The roads were vacant. A sign said New York City was closed. We


drove right up to the rubble pile and started helping with search and rescue,” Fuller recalls. The team participated in one of the last live rescues, then started


digging in the rubble. “After 24 hours, we were dirty and tired, and we drove back home. It was a very moving experience for all of us,” Fuller says, adding that he “learned a lot, like how to work in an unstable environment and keep yourself and your team safe and healthy.” This knowledge came in handy a few years later, after the deadly


Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, which killed more than 200,000 people. Fuller called the International Medical Corps to see if help was needed. He was sent to Banda Aceh, Indonesia. “I happened to be at the front edge of arriving volunteers. I went


to the hospital and found out that all of the emergency staff had been killed.” So he was asked to run emergency operations. He quickly cleaned


the emergency room and started taking care of patients. He stayed for a month. When a massive earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, Fuller was one of the


first volunteers to arrive. It was taking a long time for people to get checked in at the airport. So he snuck through a fence and made his way to the hospital, where he performed one of the first surgeries. He lead the Corps team for two weeks. The next disaster hit nine months later, when Hurricane Tomas


battered St. Lucia. Fuller headed to the familiar region to help care for refugees and set up a clinic.


16 LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO


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