Where There's A Disaster, Dr. David Marcozzi Is There
New medical professor finds emergency medicine and disaster assistance an exciting way to conduct research and practice medicine
By Geoffrey Mock
October 25, 2002 | DURHAM, NC -- Universities generally don't attract people looking to live life on the edge, but emergency medicine isn't your usual discipline and Dr. David Marcozzi isn't your typical faculty member.
An emergency medicine specialist with disaster medical assistance training through the U.S. Public Health Service, Marcozzi has been thrown in the middle of tragedies both big and small. He's been flown out by helicopter to a ship in stormy waters at the site of the 1999 Egypt Air plane crash. Two days after Sept. 11, he and a medical assistance team were sent to Ground Zero to provide care for the crews working in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.
Things aren't any more quiet for Marcozzi here in Durham. As an assistant clinical professor of emergency medicine, he's often in the Emergency Department as a practitioner and a teacher in the unit's new residency program. He's also out in the field, working as a volunteer rookie firefighter with the Parkwood Volunteer Fire Department.
"Right now, this is what my life is about," Marcozzi said. "I like the rush of being on the front lines. I don't have a family right now that I have to provide for, so I have some freedom to push the envelope a little bit."
He comes to Duke from Brown, where he was chief resident in emergency medicine and an assistant instructor of clinical medicine. It was at Brown that Marcozzi started going out on calls with paramedic teams. He said he loved the thrill of the action, but his effort was driven more by professional interests.
"I felt there was a gap between the practitioners in the hospital and the practitioners in the field," he said. "I was looking to advance medicine in the field and bridge that gap. A lot of times paramedics may resent physicians, because physicians don't always appreciate the difficulties of trying to, for example, put in a line in a patient in a dark room with the family screaming around you. The field's not controlled as in the ER.
"I felt if I was working in the field, paramedics would know that there were physicians who knew what they were going through, that we're working as a team. On the other side, I could then help physicians understand why they should listen to an EMS report. The result ideally is a better marriage between the two."
This interest also led him to start building bridges with other groups. His work with the Rhode Island Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) led him to see the value of having better communication between civilian and military officials in disaster preparedness and emergency responses.
Then, in 2000, he joined the Army Reserve, where he serves as a captain.
"The two worlds [civilian and military] often seem to speak a different language," he said. "But if something catastrophic occurs, you're going to have the military and civilian sides both working toward the same goal of providing medical care. I thought if I had some military background, I would be able to help those two sides communicate.
"And it's working for me. I think after Sept. 11, everyone recognizes that we have to work together and communicate together. It's nice that when you're talking with a military counterpart, and you're in civilian clothes, you can explain you understand the military standpoint. Doors open up. And, likewise, when I'm in military uniform, I can tell a civilian doctor that I'm on the staff at Duke, and immediately there is respect."
On Sept. 11, 2001, Marcozzi was on duty in the emergency unit at Brown. Two days later, he and his Rhode Island DMAT team were shipped into New York to provide medical care for the volunteers going through the debris of the collapsed twin towers. In the first week, the team saw 3,000 patients.
Marcozzi said the same sensibilities that help him get through a shift in the ER helped him and his team stay focused at Ground Zero.
"I didn't reflect at all," he said. "There was a job to do, and we were busy.
"In fact, the first time I started thinking about things was when one of our own team members went down with a cardiac event. We went to the hospital. It was the 10th day I was there. The Wall of Sorrow was right outside the hospital. I started to read the messages, and one of the things that caught my eye was a fireman who had gone to Ground Zero and had been initially hurt and taken to the hospital for treatment. He was then released and went back to the towers and is now still missing. When I think about that guy, I think about his dedication to his job and his mission."
There are times Marcozzi takes things at a slower pace. Born into a golfing family - his brother is on a professional tour - Marcozzi recently participated in a pro-am in Ireland with his father and brother.
But even in leisure he looks for challenges. Three times, he's worked on the medical team at NBC-TV's "Gravity Games," an extreme sport that has participants bike, run, swim, kayak and climb, among other things.
"Our job was to mostly in monitoring the participants. We got through it without having a serious injury. And I was tempted to jump in. Near the end, when they finished the climbing event, I got some rappelling in that was great."
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