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When duty calls overseas, doctor answers with unwavering altruism
The surgeon expects to be sent overseas again.
LIBERTY — The life of a medical surgeon is not always paved with surgical procedures in elaborate medical facilities, high salaries and fringe benefits.
For doctors such as 55-year-old Dr. Robert Marx of Liberty, the surgical path is laden with small facilities filled with young people embroiled in battle, some of whom don’t even speak his language. Those, he says, are the people who need his expertise most.
Dr. Marx has just returned to the Valley after serving 10 months as a surgeon in Iraq. He has also served in Kosovo, two tours in Afghanistan, Jordan and various parts of Europe.
Dr. Marx, who has been practicing medicine since 1987, said he fully expects to be on foreign soil performing surgical procedures again.
“There are a few of us who do this. We really want to keep the 18-, 19- and 20-year-old kids alive and well,” he said.
Dr. Marx did not join the military directly out of high school and was not a member of Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in college. He joined the military during a surgical residency in 1989.
“The Army was in need of surgeons and new, innovative things were being done in the military. It was the opportunity to learn these things as they were being developed,” he said.
Dr. Marx gained the additional training and is now married with children and grandchildren. Even with the time spent overseas working in war zones he does not regret his decision to serve in the military.
“You do what you have to do. There are kids out there in harm’s way so we do what we have to do to take care of them,” he said. “I don’t have any regrets, not a one. I am sure I will go again; I just don’t know when.”
Dr. Marx serves as a general surgeon performing medical procedures of virtually every type except the brain. And, he doesn’t much care who the patient is or where they come from.
He recalls working on several “little kids” in Iraq who had fallen victim to roadside bombs and suffered various injuries.
“I don’t care who the person might be. It is just the right thing to do,” he said. “Their uniforms or clothes are off, and they are then just like anyone I would treat here in Youngstown.”
That willingness to help everyone may have helped the U.S. efforts overseas, Dr. Marx said. Many Iraqis who saw that had a change of heart toward the U.S. forces, he said.
During his time in Iraq, Dr. Marx performed more than 1,044 surgical procedures. His work demands were so high he did not leave the base at all, but that is the way he likes it.
“If I were to quit general surgery, I don’t know what else I would do,” he said.
Quitting is not in the cards anytime soon. Dr. Marx said he is waiting on a contract with a local health-care provider and will be using his surgical talents a little closer to home — at least until duty calls.
jgoodwin@vindy.com