Cmdr. Carlos Godinez is a general
surgeon who performs minimally invasive
surgery—his passion—at Naval Hospital
Jacksonville.
Shortly after arriving at Naval Hospital Jacksonville, he
deployed to Afghanistan in August 2010. There, he was the
officer in charge of a team of 27. He and team were the
first Navy surgical team mission to that area of
Afghanistan—eastern part near Pakistan border—Kabul
Province.
While highly skilled and experienced surgeons, nurses and
medical technicians, most of the team was inexperienced in
combat trauma.
Under Cmdr. Godinez’s leadership, the team trained so
high-level trauma care could be provided. They experienced
many mass casualty events involving 11, 14 and 18 patients
at a time. One mass casualty involved all children. While
the experiences come with physically and emotional tolls he
said it was very gratifying.
He never envisioned being a trauma doc in Afghanistan, but was there and
connected to his patients.