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.