Post-war trauma.

Abstract

One of the great delights of general practice is the way we are allowed to share people's lives. Another facet is the humbling experience of having a patient intuitively grasp a concept that you have found difficult to understand. As regular readers of these pages are aware, I am no stranger to emergencies and trauma. Consequently I see and experience critical incident stress at first hand. This gives me some understanding of others' experiences and, I hope, might help me prevent critical incident stress developing into the more severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in those under my care. How well I recall that it was only the fall of a marble that prevented me from being conscripted for service in Vietnam. Kerry is a long-standing patient and an old friend (in a small community, if your patients aren't your friends, you do not have too many patients!). He was seeing me for something or other when he told me the following story. I was so impressed that I asked him to write it down. It speaks eloquently of the aftermath of war and how mates help each other deal with it. It also reminds us that there continue to be new crops of returned service-men who need our help.