Ramona Mulleins poses with an Iraqi patient. In addition to performing surgery on wounded U.S. soldiers, her unit provided medical care to lraqi civilians.
Many people who serve in the military send home digital pictures, but few send photos like those from Ramona Mulleins, department chair for practical nursing at Columbus Technical College.
Mulleins, RN, BSN, MSN, who served for a year as a chief nurse in an Army combat support hospital in Takrit, Iraq, never forgot her role as a teacher. Every week she e-mailed pictures of patients, with descriptions of the injuries she encountered and the innovative surgical procedures used to treat them.
"The impact on our students was huge," said Linn Storey, RN, BSN, MPA, program director of the School of Health Sciences at Columbus Tech. "They were able to see injuries and procedures that they would never have had the opportunity to see in their clinical rotations here."Mulleins, a former Army medic and operating room nurse, expected to be called to serve in Afghanistan after Sept. 1l. When the call finally came in October 2004, it was to serve in Iraq. She had a week to say goodbye to her husband and two teenage boys.
"Even though you go through the Army's most up-to-date trauma nursing training, you still don't know what to expect and you're never fully prepared for the extensiveness of the injuries from blasts, shrapnel and burns, or the traumatic amputations," Mulleins said. "Our patients were U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and civilians - from the elderly to infants. We didn't always have what we needed, so we had to get creative. There was never a dull day."
It gave Mulleins a renewed passion for trauma nursing and an interest in wound care.
"I don't mind the gore. I'd tell people to come get me for the bad ones. I like the challenge of trying to do something about it," she said.
Although some cases still haunt her, Mulleins is glad tohear how well some of her other patients are doing.
She also enjoys sharing what she learned overseas. Her students are curious, and she believes they need more preparation in disaster and trauma nursing.
"We take so much for granted here about health care," Mulleins said. "I'd watch doctors get frustrated because they didn't have what they needed. They'd say, 'OK, so what do we do about it?' "One surgeon fashioned and inserted a metal orthopedic plate into a patient in order to reconstruct an elbow. Many times doctors engineered shafts or parts so that people didn't lose limbs."
Teaching tool Mulleins' experience helped give greater understanding to students at Columbus Technical College.
"Through Mulleins' photos and commentary, our students gained a greater understanding of wound care and a sense of pride in our armed forces and what they face during war," Storey said. They also learned about health care in Iraq.
"In the Iraqi hospital, patients had
to bring their own food and bedding,
and there was one nurse for two floors -
Mulleins
and three pairs of gloves," Mulleins said.
"Nurses are the low man on the totem pole there. I wanted students to appreciate how far the role has come in the U.S."
The School of Health Sciences raised money to send a child-sized walker to a young girl with cerebral palsy and 75 Beanie Babies to children at a school in Iraq.
"I expected that the local people would not want our Army there, but the people welcomed us," Mulleins said.
A different world
She didn't mind the 130-degree heat as much as the sand, which got into everything. Mulleins wore a flak jacket and carried a weapon when off base, but she said that the scariest part was traveling in convoys in and out of Takrit.
"The soldiers would scatter us throughout the vehicles, and they did an excellent job of protecting us," she said.
Mulleins recently shared her photos at a nursing conference, where other nursing faculty requested copies. While in Iraq, Mulleins completed her MSN degree and was promoted to the rank of major.
Earlier this year, the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education honored Mulleins with a heroism award for her role in caring for troops and Iraqi civilians.
Knowing that the Army has a shortage of operating room nurses, she expects to be called again, but doesn't dwell on it.
"I look at things totally different now. I have much more compassion for patients, and a greater appreciation for family and close friends," she said. "I know how short life can really be and how important the role of nursing is."