FEATURE
April 13, 2012
www.thelittlehawk.com
B7
Everyday
Superheroes
Doctors and firefighters are two types of super heroes who walk around rescuing damsels without the help of a cape or a laser blaster. While the villians come in a different form, the threats they pose are just as real. by Mikiel Curtis
mikielcurtis@thelittlehawk.com
When Dr. John Buatti found out that he would need to complete over 10 years of schooling to be a Radiation Oncologist, he figured it’d all be worth it in the end. “If you want to be good at something it takes time and experience,” Buatti said. “All of this schooling and training made me better at my job by exposing me to a broad range of experiences and clinical scenarios.” This is a common belief between Dr. Buatti and fire fighter Marc Reyhons. “I have an EMT and Fire Science certificate from Kirkwood. I also attended an eight week Fire Academy in South Carolina where I received advanced training in firefighting,”
Reyhons said. “I still regularly attend educational classes to keep my certificates up-to-date.” Like most superheroes, the need to protect and save others starts when you’re young. “The first girl I had a crush on in grade school ended up having her leg amputated and receiving cancer therapy in 7-9th grade,” said Buatti. “We were good friends and the illness and pain seemed unfair. Later, when she was a freshman in high school, she died from her cancer. On her casket was the famous John Donne poem – ‘Death, Be Not Proud’. It was then that I vowed to try and fix this wrong and when I was older and got close to medical school it was that background that made me obsessed to know everything there was to know about cancer.” But like any other job, saving lives
is very time consuming. “Working 24 hour shifts, I miss a lot of holidays and family activities that other people who work 8-5 shifts would not miss.” Reyhons said. Having jobs like these also cut into their personal life. “A true profession is part of your life. It is not separate from your personal life,” Buatti said. “I enjoy my work so it is not only my job, but also my main interest. I work at it a great deal, often on evenings and weekends.” Jobs that involve saving lives are often plagued with stereotypes and assumptions, such as cops always eating donuts in their spare time. “Most people think all firefighters are heroes, but that's not true. You're only a hero by chance if put in certain situations,” Reyhons said. “People also think that all we do is lay
around and sleep at the station and play cards, but in reality we have a structured work environment. We do inspections, training, and run emergency calls which occur a lot more than people think. Sometimes we get no sleep at all.” The stereotypes sometimes affect the precautions that are taken to make someone better. “Most people don’t understand how radiation works but are afraid of cancer and afraid of cancer treatments as well,” Buatti said about treatments such as chemotherapy. “They assume all the treatments will make them sick or assume they will lose their hair. This is seldom true for many types of treatments.” People even question why others would want to be in a position where another person’s life can literally hang in their hands.
“Some people don’t understand how I could like to take care of patients that I know are going to die sooner rather than later,” Buatti said. But there is always one thing that people with extraoridinary jobs such as these have in common. To save lives and make the world a safer place. “My main goal in my profession is to keep myself safe while helping others so that I can come home to my family at the end of the day,” said Reyhons. “My main goal in my profession is to cure patients when possible and alleviate symptoms like pain when not possible for patients with cancer.” concluded Buatti. graphic by LILY HOWARD & NORA HOLMAN