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by rdl·2y ago·view on hn ↗
When I was in Iraq/Afghanistan 2004-2010, one of my favorite things was working with the military hospitals (I sold satcom to a variety of clients, including medical use for radiology, and then worked on radiology PACS stuff).

The Army Combat Support Hospital (think MASH tv-show...) guys could set something up like this really fast, but it was expensive hardware, required their own personnel, etc. This makes sense for the US military (massive logistics, budget, etc.), but not for others. Also worked (volunteer/charity) with some local clinics who didn't have these kind of resources, but did have great personnel, who could use more locally-acquired or bespoke solutions -- problem was it was slow, not uniform standard, etc.

A cost-reduced, standardized, easily transportable hybrid is great. Ideally you'd use existing standardized readily available stuff with minimal medical/flown in stuff on top.

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I love that you went there with an invasion force (not judging) but also helped local medical infrastructure.
I went to Iraq despite being against the invasion (although very pro CIA/JSOC activities in Afghanistan in 2001, but anti Big Army stuff in Afghanistan -- I met some of the "first in" guys a few years later and double down on that belief now) to 1) get as far away from a girl I'd broken up with in 2003 in the US and 2) to do a startup IX business with some Iraqi expats (who'd moved to London in the 70s-80s) and 3) be close to the biggest news event happening in the world and see what it was like up close.

The helping-out-with-medical happened 5-6 years later and was entirely due to the company I was contracting for having some connections at the founder level with Christian and medical charities who were also helping out there -- I can't really take any credit for "volunteering" for that, it was much closer to "voluntold", but I'm glad I did it.