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According to this recap of an interview of Dr Sanjay Gupta on the Dr Oz Show, there was an incident while he was acting as a journalist in a war zone in Iraq:

While in Iraq, he encountered a soldier with a critical head wound. He switched roles from reporter to surgeon to offer his expertise, but the field was not prepared for such intensive surgery.

He improvised, using a Black and Decker drill bit to perform brain surgery on a soldier, who was then airlifted out of the danger zone for further treatment.

Given that it is a Dr. Oz show, which makes me incredibly skeptical of anything he says, is there anything to substantiate this?

yuritsuki
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1 Answers1

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Yes.

See Time.com. They repeat a quote of his from a CNN article:

As a neurosurgeon, I was asked to step back from my journalist's role to look at his gunshot wound to the head. Shortly thereafter, I was removing a bullet from his brain.

From The Salt Lake Tribune:

I probably owe my life to Dr. Gupta.

(said by Jesus Vidana, who "learned that the Navy's so-called Devil Docs had asked CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon, to operate when Vidana was airlifted to a field hospital in Iraq").

And from Los Angeles Daily News:

Gupta switched from reporter to doctor, grabbed a drill bit and went to work.

  • So they were lying when they said "Gupta performed surgery, then they airlifted the soldier out of the danger zone" correct? It's not like he did the surgery right after he got hit, because your article mentions he operated at a field hospital – yuritsuki Jun 08 '14 at 14:57
  • Where does the article say that? –  Jun 08 '14 at 19:53
  • *said by Jesus Vidana, who "learned that the Navy's so-called Devil Docs had asked CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon, **to operate when Vidana was airlifted to a field hospital in Iraq*** – yuritsuki Jun 08 '14 at 19:53
  • But the article I cited states: *He improvised, using a Black and Decker drill bit to perform brain surgery on a soldier, who **was then airlifted out of the danger zone** for further treatment.* Makes the article sounds like they tried to embellish it – yuritsuki Jun 08 '14 at 19:54
  • I took that as saying that he learned that Gupta operated. And that that learning happened when vidana was airlifted. –  Jun 08 '14 at 19:55
  • But the way he says it implied "the neurosurgeon operated AFTER him being airlifted to a hospital", whereas one of your sources states "the neurosurgeon operated on him, THEN he was airlifted to a hospital". – yuritsuki Jun 08 '14 at 19:57
  • @thinlyveiledquestionmark Okay. –  Jun 08 '14 at 20:21
  • http://www.buffalo.edu/ubreporter/campus/campus-host-page.host.html/content/shared/university/news/ub-reporter-articles/stories/2014/March/gupta_dss.detail.html is where Dr Gupta recounts his version of the events – HappySpoon Jun 09 '14 at 10:05
  • "he was embedded in Iraq with the Navy’s elite Devil Docs group, which erects sophisticated surgical suites just behind front-line troops; its purpose was to cut the amount of time it took to get medical care to critically injured soldiers." – msmucker0527 Jun 09 '14 at 15:43