Journal 7-Amy Scarborough

      In Hiroshima so far, I find Dr. Sasaki has been the most interesting to me. I think his character appeals to me the most because I work in a hospital. I feel for him because he is so exhausted and doesn't stop to even think about what is going on, in fact he thought that the explosion was somewhat localized and only affected the hospital at first. He remains on auto-pilot and does what he knows how to do for the people who flooded into the hospital. He stays and works and helps, when he could run away from the responsibilities. He worked for nineteen hours straight until 3 o'clock in the morning.  "Dr Sasaki was incapable of dressing another wound." He found a quiet spot behind the hospital with a few other colleagues, but within an hour injured patients had found him and woke him so he went back to work. Those around him relied on him and dehumanized him, they forgot that he also needs to take care of himself.

      Dr. Sasaki is loyal, hardworking and shows compassion by helping the injured. He also worries about his mother thinking he is dead due to not going home. It shows he puts others feelings before his own. He is someone to be admired.

One question that came to my mind was the ethics on who the medical team helps. In the book on page 50 an Army Medical Unit Doctor explained to Mr. Tanimoto that there first role is to help those with slight wounds and not to help those with extensive wounds because they were going to die anyway. And they are trying to save as many lives as possible. 

Most often you hear the opposite, you would assume help of the most critically wounded, who would in fact die without urgent medical attention and then move on to others with significant injuries but non-critical. In American Hospitals most adopt the triage acuity scales that have three levels,where Level 1 is the most critical, and the patient often needs help maintaining an airway. Level 2 is often severe but not always critical, they require urgent medical attention and level 3 is also requiring urgent medical attention but does not take precedence over level 1 or 2. I could not find much information on big disaster plans in the US on how to help large masses of people like Hiroshima.