ALUMNI PROFILE

Joseph P. Costabile, MD ’86:
Comrade • in • Arms

By Kate O’Neill

Kuwait, 2005

• “A Humvee rolled over on one of our soldiers, splitting his face in-
  to a million pieces; his arm was nearly severed. When they brought him in, the flight paramedic was doing CPR on him. After I got out of the OR, I thought, ‘This kid’s never going to survive.’ But he not only survived, he lived to see his daughter born, three months later, back in the States. It required a huge team effort, and I was proud to be part of it.”
• “One soldier was unfortunately dead on arrival and pronounc-
  ed by the ER doctor, a good physician with a lot of experience. We all stepped outside Casualty Receiving (the ER), and I saw tears welling up in his eyes. We talked awhile and agreed that, although we have pronounced patients before, something here makes the job more touching and awful. The loss of anyone is a loss of our own, and we all feel it. Any soldier who died in our care received full military honors as they left the hospital.”

“Giving Back”

Joseph P. Costabile, MD ’86, acts on his beliefs: “Whether you’re giving back to the people who gave you your educational opportunities or giving back to your country, I believe you should contribute.” Dr. Costabile emphasizes his credo, whether he is writing in his blog, speaking to the press, talking to a friend, or addressing
a crowd. He made his point again last spring in a remarkable talk to guests at the Associ-
ation of Families and Friends/Alumni Association Brunch. He also serves on the Alumni Association Board of Trustees.

In 1994, Dr. Costabile joined the U.S. Navy Medical Reserves, because, he says, “Despite all its warts and foibles, we live in a great nation, and giving back is the most important part of being a citizen.”

Since the end of the Vietnam War, when he was barely 21, Dr. Costabile had wondered how he could best contribute to his country. In 1990, when recruiters from the U.S. Navy Medical Reserves began to call, he realized that the military structure and mission of the Reserves were well suited to his skills, goals, and personality.

In 1994, he joined up. At that time, he had completed his general surgery residency and a trauma fellowship at Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center, Camden, and was doing a second fellowship, in clinical vascular surgery, at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, in New Brunswick. “I knew people who’d rallied to the cause during Desert Storm and was impressed by their commitment,” he recalls. “I knew I’d found my niche.”
After his fellowship, Dr. Costabile returned to his alma mater, the RWJMS, Camden campus, and served on the faculty for three years before joining the Surgical Group of South Jersey. Then, in September 2004, he had the opportunity to put his beliefs on the line. He accepted a commanding officer’s call to serve as director of surgical services for a medical unit in Kuwait, the staging area for Operation Iraqi Freedom. By December, his new unit, Expeditionary Medical Force – Dallas (EMF-Dallas), had shipped out for an eleven-month tour of duty, which he believes may be the first of several mobilizations in the Middle East. “It would be a privilege to serve again in the Navy tradition of honor, courage, and commitment,” he says.

Esprit de Corps

Dr. Costabile’s support for the U.S. mission in Iraq is secondary to his support for the troops. “In every generation, Americans have put themselves in harm’s way to keep the rest of us safe,” he says. “We take care of the soldiers who take care of us.”

“Welcome to the fight,” said Major General Paul E. Mock, deputy commander, Coalition Forces Land Combat Component, Kuwait, as he greeted the 350 members of EMF-Dallas. That “fight,” says Dr. Costabile, would be to “make medicine better in the theater. Our unit got to make history for Navy medicine: we saw more than 100,000 patients, performed 1,800-plus surgeries, wrote more than 65,000 prescriptions, did 32,000 radiology procedures, and achieved an 83 percent return-to-unit rate, within six weeks of treatment.”

For the most part, EMF-Dallas saw routine cases, as the unit cared for members of the Coalition Forces in Iraq or returning home. With the exception of occasional maneuver-related traumas, Dr. Costabile’s work was similar to what he does in private practice. The difference lay in the intense camaraderie of EMF-Dallas. Everyone shared the sense of having left his or her safe world behind to serve those who were sent to protect their country — of being a comrade-in-arms.

Although most combat-related injuries were treated in Iraq, Dr. Costabile says his trauma fellowship stood him in good stead: “Thinking affectsperformance, and emergencies aren’t like scheduled surgery, especially in a combat zone. You have to be able to make split-second decisions individually and as a team.” In war, a physician must practice the art of medicine as often as the science, he explains, respecting the supreme role of the military unit in a soldier’s life. “When a wounded Marine came out of surgery, he would never ask, ‘How am I doing?’ or ‘Am I going home?’ His first question always was, ‘When can I get back to my unit?’”

Sharing Credit

Dr. Costabile, a prolific writer, created an in-depth journal through his correspondence from Kuwait. He frequently emailed his former mentor, Alan M. Graham, MD, professor of surgery and Norman and Ruth H. Rosenberg Chair in Vascular Surgery. Dr. Graham has seen his former protégé regularly over the past ten years, and he remains impressed by the energy, eagerness, and gratitude that characterize Dr. Costabile. “Above all, he’s a team player,” says Dr. Graham. “He always transfers the credit for his accomplishments to others on his team.” When Dr. Costabile wrote about his work in Kuwait, he thanked Dr. Graham for having helped him develop the skills he would need. “He always said that I was there with him,” adds Dr. Graham.