I'm Colonel Paul Charlebois, an internal medicine specialist
with 1 Canadian Field Hospital, posted to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The Canadian Armed Forces, I felt, would provide me with an opportunity
to do things that my civilian colleagues wouldn't -
some adventure, some different experiences in medicine,
and opportunities that just wouldn't exist in the civilian sector.
Opportunities to travel, and also to participate in patient care
that is often not available to members of my specialty who work in civilian hospitals -
for example, critical care air transportation,
operational medicine including flight surgeon, and aerospace medicine,
as well as working a little bit more with trauma that our civilian colleagues just would not see.
Working for the Department of National Defence in a civilian hospital,
my day-to-day role is the same as any other physician.
However, when I get deployed, and when I get called away, that is when my job changes.
I'm asked to work in an austere environment, or in a place far away from Canada,
to provide care to our soldiers, and using different equipment and in a different situation.
In terms of teamwork, I work closely with trauma surgeons,
anesthesiologists, and our orthopedic surgeons,
whom I may see in passing in the hallway at my civilian hospital,
but when I travel with them, our tight-knit teams
provide you an opportunity to make relationships that last a lifetime.