I have met thousands of surgeons, but Dr. Keith Rose is the first surgeon that had a Glock automatic pistol in his waistband when I met him.
We had just landed in Kabul, Afghanistan to visit CURE International, one of our partner hospitals. Dr. Rose was a visiting surgeon who had been helping mentor Dr. Hashimi, the hospital’s chief plastic surgeon and a really good cleft surgeon for years.
We had come all this way to thank both Rose and Hashimi and their team for all the good work they were doing and to find out what we could do to help them scale up their cleft surgeries.
As we left the airport and drove to the hospital, Dr. Rose gave us a summary of the hospital telling us how many beds there were, how many cleft surgeries they do every year, how big the medical team was, how many surgeons they had, etc.
But as we drove through the middle of Kabul, Dr. Rose abruptly stopped talking and said, “I do NOT like the look of that garbage can.”
All of us gasped as we quickly spotted the battered garbage can he was talking about 200 yards ahead of us.
This is how you die in Kabul. We had a truck following us with our security, a bunch of guys with machine guns. But no one dies from gunfire in this time.
Instead, they plant a roadside IED, also known as an improvised explosive device, also known as a bomb next to the road. And then someone sits there all day with their finger on the button while they wait for a US army vehicle to drive by – or a Range Rover filled with Americans.
No one said a word as we approached the garbage can, holding our breath, and we all let out a collective sigh as we passed it in a did not explode. Dr. Rose resume talking as if nothing had happened. Welcome to Kabul.
Dr. Rose is an internationally recognized surgeon and tactical medicine physician that lives in Corpus Christi, Texas. He’s has been performing plastic and reconstructive surgery and helping train Smile Train partner surgeons in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Africa for the past 11 years. He speaks Farsi and Dara so he’s very comfortable traveling throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan.
One time when we needed him to visit one of our partner hospitals in Pakistan during a time when the US government would not let Americans fly into Pakistan, Keith shrugged and told us he would just “grow his beard and go in by truck.” He asked me if I wanted to join him and I declined. Dr. Keith Rose is a former U.S. Army Captain and used to working in war zones and hostile territory.
Dr. Rose also has his own charity through which he conducts surgical missions all over central and southern America.
I always admired Keith Rose for his courage and commitment to helping people who are living in the most dangerous places in the world.
After meeting Dr. Rose I was embarrassed at how hesitant we were to make a short visit to Kabul. There was a huge bombing at the police academy just days before our trip and we almost canceled.
We decided to go ahead after we considered Dr. Rose and the fact that he travels to Kabul all the time. And of course, the entire team at our partner hospital has come from all over the world to save lives in Kabul. The least we could do was visit for a couple of days and thank them for their work and sacrifice.
Our visit was extremely productive and without incident. But soon after we left, the hotel we stayed at was attacked by the Taliban.
Four gunmen dressed up as Afghan policemen entered the hotel, detonated a suicide vest, and started shooting AK-47s. They ran to the gym because that’s where you can find most Americans and foreigners. They murdered six people and injured more than a dozen.
The Taliban attacked our hotel again a few years later and killed 9 people.
And that same year, the Taliban attacked our partner hospital too when an Afghan policeman who was supposed to be protecting the hospital went rogue.
He started shooting and killing three people including a visiting, volunteer doctor. After the gunman was shot, colleagues of the murdered doctor, rushed the gunman into surgery and saved his life. That tells you all you need to know about the character of the people who work at our partner hospital in Kabul.
I am sharing these stories to let you know just how dangerous it is for Dr. Rose to travel to Kabul so frequently. He has young children at home and a wife he adores. I often worry about him traveling to Kabul and Pakistan and all the crazy and dangerous places he routinely travels to.
At the same time, I really respect and admire him for the intentional life he is leading and the thousands of lives he has changed.
I will always be grateful for all the help and support he has given me, and our Smile Train partners over the years.
