Dr. Kenneth Lee’s personal recovery from injury and depression influences his patient relationships today
Dr. Kenneth Lee launched an adaptive sports and recreation league for injured veterans in southeastern Wisconsin to enhance their physical rehabilitation.
In 2004, Kenneth Lee, MD, was stationed in Iraq treating his battle buddies who were wounded in the field, when a suicide car bomb left him badly injured.
He suffered traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and nerve and joint damage that led to years of therapy, surgery and depression.
The darkness continued until his fellow veterans gave him a renewed sense of purpose.
Today, Dr. Lee is an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Medical College of Wisconsin and chief of the Spinal Cord Injury Division at the VA Zablocki Medical Center in Milwaukee.
"While stationed, we were trained to have a battle buddy. That battle buddy mentality comes out when I am treating a fellow veteran. They are my patients, but they are my comrades as well."
Dr. Lee’s spinal cord injury patients face many of the problems he faced and experience similar complex emotions, and he shares that he helps them as much as he can along the way because he can relate.
"We always tell our patients there are support services available to them,” says Dr. Lee. “Because I have used almost all of them, now I can look my patients in the eyes and tell them with complete certainty those services work. They help. And they believe me because I can talk to them in their own language.”
Throughout his rehabilitation – the surgeries, the physical therapy and occupational therapy, the sessions with the psychiatrist – as well as throughout his own internal battles, Dr. Lee paid attention to what he liked, what he didn't like and how he felt along the way.
"Being a veteran, and having been a patient at the VA, I understand so much about what they are going through. Like when they don’t want to deal with the pain, or are feeling lonely and scared and want to harm themselves.”
To make therapy more engaging and interesting for his patients, Dr. Lee launched an adaptive sports and recreation league, including activities such as sled hockey, wheelchair lacrosse and goal ball.
"So many of these paralyzed veterans have it worse than I ever had it, and seeing their resilience and perseverance as they participate in these sporting events helped bring me through my ailments. We help each other.”
Through his work as a doctor as well as time as a patient and veteran, Dr. Lee has gained a network of inspirational support from both his fellow battle buddies and his fellow medical professionals.
“Now, I am enjoying life with my family members and my spinal cord injury veterans, all of whom have saved my life and career."
This is the story of James, a veteran whose story was rewritten thanks to Dr. Lee.
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