USU Pediatrician Brings Hope, Healing to Children Injured in Afghanistan

By Ian Neligh

The day Army Capt. (Dr.) Emily Parsons arrived in Landstuhl, Germany was also the day a devastating airport attack shook Kabul in Afghanistan: Aug. 26, 2021. Plane loads of bombing victims began to arrive immediately, and Parsons—on her first-ever deployment—launched into action to care for the injured and sick children of evacuees in the wake of the United States military withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

Army Capt. (Dr.) Emily Parsons, USU assistant professor,
helped care for injured and sick children of evacuees during
her first deployment in the wake of the U.S. military
withdrawal from Afghanistan. [Photo credit: Army Capt. (Dr.)
Emily Parsons]

The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) assistant professor, Parsons, who graduated medical school from USU in 2018, had only just finished her pediatrics residency at Madigan Army Medical Center when she received her orders to deploy to Germany.

“It was very short-term notice. I think I had about a 36-hour turnaround time from when I got the notification that this was a possibility to when I was actually on the plane. But it turned out to be very fortuitous that I got there so quickly,” Parsons says. “The first few weeks felt dominated by those trauma patients who were pretty critically ill.”

According to Parsons, many of those patients were with them just briefly, stabilized, and then accepted at host nation facilities in Germany. Some were transferred back to Landstuhl and ultimately evacuated to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and other military treatment facilities on the east coast of the U.S.

“Once we had most of those victims stabilized … then we started to have this influx of infectious disease—diseases that can occur among an unvaccinated population and especially in a population in close quarters,” Parsons says.

She says they saw a lot of diarrheal illnesses, and there was a measles outbreak. In the background of all those infectious cases, was also a population that had varying degrees of healthcare needs that hadn’t been previously met.

“The kids were very scared, there was a lot of psychological trauma in addition to the physical trauma,” Parsons says.

While she admits the language barrier was difficult, Parsons says she and the other doctors worked closely with parents and interpreters to close that gap.

“We had many phenomenal interpreters who surged with us,” Parsons says. “The demands on the interpreters were pretty hefty and there were times when I know they were working overtime. I know they were spending a lot of their waking hours interpreting for us, which was very important.”

In the early days of her deployment, Parsons admitted she was nervous, and that it was one of the most medically stressful situations she’s yet experienced.

“I also felt a sense of competency and even though it was very stressful, my training kicked in and I knew the steps that had to be done and it gave me a boost of confidence,” Parsons says. “The education that I received at USU and the training in my residency was excellent and prepared me well for this experience.”

Parsons emphasizes the importance of having pediatricians respond to humanitarian disasters.

“Pediatricians are trained with a very different skill set and it is different medicine,” Parsons says. “Also people tend to react more emotionally when children are involved, and it is helpful to have someone who is an expert in child medicine there to help guide management decisions and medications because we approach things a little differently than the adult world.”

Remembering back to that first day and receiving the first plane load of bombing victims, Parsons says about half of them were children.

“They were some of the sickest kids I’ve ever seen,” Parsons says. “It was hard, they were pretty sick but… I was working with a great group of people, of surgeons, of ICU doctors – we stabilized them and sent them to Walter Reed.”

Photo credit: Marcy Sanchez

Parsons adds that—after her five-week deployment ended and she returned to the United States—she found some of the children she worked with in Germany staying at Walter Reed, receiving continued treatment.

“Seeing the difference, the change, the improvement that these kids had undergone was so phenomenal,” Parsons says. “I saw kids from the bombing, victims that just had many injuries, so many broken limbs, abdominal injuries, burns—and then months later, admittedly still in the hospital, but were walking, smiling and joking.”

Parsons says there was one three-year-old boy she took care of at Landstuhl who had a lot of orthopedic injuries and was in really bad shape.

“Now, months later, he said his first English sentence which was, ‘I like cookies’ and he was just walking around with the biggest grin,” Parsons says. “It was so great to see that, as a team, we had taken this kid who would have died without our intervention and now he’s looking phenomenal.”

And for Parsons herself, bringing hope to families looking for a better future and helping these children on the path to recovery was both humbling and joyful, she says. “I have been impressed by the resilience of these families. At each step of the way their healing has taken an enormous effort across multiple institutions and specialties. I am proud to have been part of the team.“

A wall of colorings drawn by the children awaiting transit from Germany to the United States. Army Capt. (Dr.) Emily Parsons arrived in

Landstuhl, Germany, the same day as the airport attack in Kabul on Aug. 26. [Photo credit: Army Capt. (Dr.) Emily Parsons]