The trauma surgeon: introduction -- The general medical officer: the early postgraduate years -- My first major trauma: the junior surgical resident -- Indoctrination, brainwashing, and sleep deprivation: the training of a surgeon -- Baptism by fire: the county hospital -- The university experience: the world's greatest trauma surgeon -- A tragic ending: Albuquerque -- Pure hell: cardiovascular surgery -- Good fortune: the chief surgical resident -- The independent surgeon: Fort Polk Louisiana -- 9/11--the day that changed everything: transition to civilian practice -- Limb lost, life saved: the mutilated limb -- Cold-blooded killer: a mother's undying love -- Broken minds and damaged bodies: mental illness -- The illegal alien: everyone has an angle -- Off to war: deployment to Afghanistan -- A desolate wasteland: Afghanistan -- Suicide by crossbow: treating the full spectrum of the ages -- Trauma and the flesh-eating bacteria: the brutal disfigurement of a woman's body -- Parking lot murder: a senseless killing -- The sniper's rifle: the benevolence of a SWAT team member -- The alcoholic trauma patient: one of many ways to ruin one's life -- Back to the combat zone: deployment to Iraq -- Guns, knives, and drugs: urban violence -- Poor Roger: a painful, bitter ending -- The final chapter: it has been a privilege

"TRAUMA is Dr. Cole's harrowing account of his life spent in the ER and on the battlegrounds, fighting to save lives. In addition to his gripping stories of treating victims of gunshot wounds, stabbings, attempted suicides, flesh-eating bacteria, car crashes, industrial accidents, murder, and war, the book also covers the years during Cole's residency training when he was faced with 120-hour work weeks, excessive sleep deprivation, and the pressures of having to manage people dying of traumatic injury, often with little support. Unlike the authors of other medical memoirs, Cole trained to be a surgeon in the military and served as a physician member of a Marine Corps reconnaissance unit, United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), and on a Navy Reserve SEAL team. From treating war casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq to his experiences as a civilian trauma surgeon treating alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals, and the mentally deranged, TRAUMA is an intense look at one man's commitment to his country and to those most desperately in need of aid"--