Life on the Front Lines
Daniel Nicastri, MD, a former Navy doctor and current Mount Sinai thoracic surgeon, interviews Lou Guerra, former Green Beret and current student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Guerra shares his journey from running a successful pizza restaurant to the battlefield to the classroom, and how the lessons he learned in Afghanistan and Ukraine helped him meet the academic challenges on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Stephen Calabria: [00:00:00] From the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, this is Road to Resilience, a podcast about facing adversity. I'm your host Stephen Calabria, Mount Sinai's Director of Podcasting.
On this episode, and in honor of Tuesday, November 11th being Veterans Day, we're privileged to have two esteemed vets on the show.
Lou Guerra is a former financier-turned manager of a successful family pizza shop-turned U.S. Army Forces Green Beret, where he served as a medic. Lou has served in both Afghanistan and Ukraine, and come face-to-face with some of the gravest trials a human being can endure.
He is guest-interviewed on this episode by Daniel Nicastri, MD. Dr. Nicastri is a former Staff Surgeon at the Guantanamo Bay detention Center, and then later Commander in the U.S. Navy. After completing his Navy Active Duty service, Dr. Nicastri joined Mount Sinai in 2014 and currently serves as a thoracic and general surgeon.
Together, the pair illustrate the lessons that veterans may offer the rest of us through their sacrifices, and why servicemembers' grit and determination continues to offer lessons for us all.
We're honored to welcome Lou Guerra and Dr. Daniel Nicastri to the show. Listener discretion is advised, as this episode contains vivid descriptions of battlefield injuries and wartime medical care.
Daniel Nicastri: [00:01:00] Hello and welcome to Road to Resilience, Mount Sinai Health System's groundbreaking podcast.
I'm your host, Daniel Nicastri. I've been a thoracic surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital for 11 years, and prior to that I served in the US Navy. I was stationed in the DC area working at Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia and at the National Military Medical Center at Bethesda, the Naval Hospital at Guantanamo Bay.
And I also served in afghanistan and the role three hospital in Kandahar in 2012. So that brings us to my introducing someone whose unique experiences have led him through many great challenges, [00:02:00] which he'll likely see many more challenges in his career as well, with a focus on military veterans and the unique strengths they bring to medicine.
I have the pleasure of introducing Lou Guerra. I would like to start with a description of Lou from one of his closest Special Forces teammates