Army M.D. returns from service abroad
Published 12:00 am Monday, June 28, 2004
Dr. Shane Lee, who is a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, has just returned home – not from Iraq but from Wuerzburg, Germany.
Lee, who has been in the reserves for 20 years, is commander of the Tuscaloosa-based 75th
CASH unit – a hospital unit –
which has 500 personnel, 309 of whom were called up.
He left on Feb. 26 and returned to Fort Benning on June 13.
In Lee’s absence his solo family practice clinic in Marion, which also provides medical care for the Marion Military Institute and Judson College communities, was well managed and fully staffed by two doctors and interns from Vaughan Regional Medical Center.
That the local team, supported by Vaughan Regional Medical Center which owns Lee’s clinic, stepped in was critical for a one-man operation – even as Lee and his Army hospital unit were
critical for some of those normally manning the First Infantry Division Hospital in Wuerzburg who went to the Middle East.
In fact the whole saga shows how deeply the current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan are affecting thousands of American families, businesses and other organizations.
This was not the first call-up for Lee.
The first one nearly did him in. He was a young doctor when he was called up for reserve duty in 1990 to serve in Operation Desert Storm, from October 1990 to May 1991. Then Lee’s personal situation was much more precarious. He actually owned the clinic and had little financial margin of safety. Being away meant not being able to pay the mortgage. Since then Vaughan has bought the clinic and Lee is on the staff of the hospital.
Also, there was no staff in Selma ready to step in, though Dr. Donald Overstreet, founder of the Selma family practice residency program
at the hospital, immediately stepped in when Lee called him. Lee knew Overstreet well. Overstreet had taught him in the mid-1980s in the residency program.
This time, not only did Overstreet return to Marion to work at Lee’s practice two days a week, but he was joined by Dr. Monica
Newton, assistant professor in the UAB/Selma Family Medicine residency program, who helped out as well, along with interns in the residency program.
Additionally, Steve Mahan, Vaughan CEO pointed out proudly that Province HealthCare, of which Vaughan is a part, has the only program in the nation to his knowledge that provides full salary when a doctor is called up.
Lee said that of the doctors he worked with, none had a package nearly as generous.
Overstreet, whose uniform has many ribbons over the breast pocket, was quick to say that service in Germany is not the kind of hard duty faced by those who are going to the Middle East. But still time away from one’s spouse and children is always a hardship.
As a token of his appreciation and that of the U.S. Army for the arrangements made by Vaughan to support his time away, Lee gave certificates of appreciation from the Department of the Army to Mahan, Overstreet and Newton.
Lee said that he will be attending the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., in July, which will require two additional years of Army service.
Lee is a forthright supporter of American efforts in the Middle East.
“People need to know that things are going about as they should be over there at this point in the deployment. The television news here is not reliable,”
he said. “We ought to be there (Iraq). The number of casualties is relatively low. It’s actually (our mission in the Middle East) coming together,” he said.
Lee expressed deep gratitude for the home front support that he and other American military personnel are receiving, noting that much of the U.S. military force structure is now National Guard and reserve and increasing numbers are being deployed.