PURSUiNG MEdicAl cAREERS AFtER SERviNG thEiR cOUNtRy

Securing the United Nations building in Baghdad wasone of Mercurio’s most memorable times as a Marine.“By the time we got there, the walls had been stripped.It took some time to clear the hundreds of looters outof the building andclaim it as our(temporary)headquarters,”Mercurio said.He said the entireoperation fromKuwait to Tikrit tookabout 23 days.Mercurio choseWesternU because ofthe uniqueinterdisciplinaryapproach the schooloffers and becausebecoming a familynurse practitionerStephen Dolinkowill allow him more vocational freedom. He usesvocational rehabilitation to help pay for his education.★ ★ ★ ★Along with Mercurio, Stephen Dolinko, DVM ’13,Lawrence Ebel, DMD ’14, and David Gordon Otis,DO ’14, all see the military as a place they learnedresponsibility, and that has helped them to succeed asgraduate students at WesternU.Dolinko joined the Navy in 1997, straight out of highschool, because he couldn’t afford college. He tookenough course work while in the Navy to get a degreein electrical engineering, but “While I enjoyelectronics, biological systems appealed to me more,”he said.Dolinko received degrees in neuroscience andpsychology before becoming a student at WesternU.He said the Navy wanted him to become a nuclearengineer, but he did not want that type of life, so hepursued medicine. The Navy has corpsmen, but doesnot offer veterinary medicine.Dolinko was deployed to Iraq in 2003, part of theinitial invasion of Operation IraqiFreedom. He was an ET3(electronics technician thirdclass) saying his “positionwas considered realimportant.”He was in charge of makingsure battle groups communicatedand that ground forces got correctmessages and traffic information. He alsorepaired equipment and had the clearanceto interpret messages.The military taught Dolinko how to dealwith people in stressful situations and notbe distracted while many things are goingon, he said. He was honorably dischargedin September 2004, exhausted his GI Bill,and has been using vocational rehabilitation funding.“I chose WesternU because I like the third and fourthyears. I like doing things that are more hands-on. I likeinteracting with patients the first weeks we are here,”he said.★ ★ ★ ★Third-year College of Dental Medicine studentLawrence Ebel finished his eight years in the ArmyReserves as a captain in February 2012.At the end of 2005, Ebel went through the OfficerBasic Course, worked for six months while thinkingabout dental school, then worked on his prerequisiteswhen he was deployed in September 2006 to Iraq,where he stayed for one year.Ebel says they were in a pretty “hot area” in Ramadi,west of Baghdad, where he was a support platoonleader, part of a route-clearing battalion that droveContinued on page 1514 Western University of Health Sciences