UNECOM alum Michael McCarten, commanding officer of the NATO Multinational Medical Unit in Kandahar, profiled by Seacoastonline

Seacoastonline on April 3, 2011 published a feature story on U.S. Navy Capt. Michael McCarten, a 1983 University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine graduate, currently serving as commanding officer of the NATO Multinational Medical Unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The story titled "Of Love and War" tells the stories of McCarten and his wife, Kathleen Marra, who garnered national media coverage when Marra founded "Combat Knitters," a social networking group for knitters that began when Marra hooked up with knitters at McCarten's Kandahar hospital.  

Talking to the reporter via Skype from Kandahar, McCarten described a life that is at once fulfilling and heart-wrenching. "I think it is a very important, noble mission, and it's lifesaving," he said. "We're having an impact on the whole conflict. The people coming to us have mortal wounds, and we have a 97 percent survival rate. It's good for the soldiers and good for the confidence of the officers that they know we'll take good care of their soldiers."

The brand new $40 million hospital is rocket-proof, he said, and houses a staff of 270, including 25 physicians with a variety of specialties including neurosurgery, orthopedics, trauma and intensive care. About 85 percent of the staff is U.S. Navy, 10 percent is from Canada and 5 percent is from the Netherlands, he said.

The vast majority of the patients they see have been injured by an improvised explosive device and not from gunshot wounds, he said. Roughly half of all the patients are Afghan and one-third of them are children. A family physician by training, McCarten said it can break your heart to see some of the children come in missing a limb after an IED they were playing with exploded.

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