A new mission

Dr. Erik Stickney spent about 13 years on active duty in the U.S. Army. For most of that time, he had a pretty plush assignment: seeing cancer patients at Tripler Medical Center in Honolulu. But his service wasn’t all a tropical paradise; he also spent time under fire in Afghanistan.

Stickney doesn’t overstate or understate the dangers he encountered. He wasn’t a field medic, but he did travel on roads that needed to be checked for explosive devices. He’d treat soldiers’ wounds and ailments, but not in M*A*S*H conditions. He’d hear alarms and mortar fire, but no ammunition came close to hitting him, fortunately.

Now his military tenure is complete, and he’s made the move from Hawaii to Chico, becoming medical director of radiation oncology for the Enloe Regional Cancer Center. His family remained in Pearl City until the end of the school year; in a matter of weeks, he will be reunited with his wife and four children.

Dr. Michael Baird, executive director of the cancer center, calls Stickney “a seasoned physician with a dynamic personality and a wealth of new ideas. He will be a great asset to the community.”

Stickney, for his part, is happy to be back in the Golden State, in an area where he can make an impact with the techniques and technologies he mastered while at a top-tier military hospital.

“Technologically, they kept us pretty up to date,” Stickney said of Tripler, where he served as chief of radiation oncology. “Our machines are pretty expensive, but when you compare them to the cost of an F-16 [fighter jet], we’re a pretty small drop in the bucket.”

Stickney grew up in Southern California, in the inland city of Redlands. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology from UCLA, then with his M.D. from the Medical College of Wisconsin. The expense of his medical education prompted him to enlist in the Army, which allowed him to complete his radiation oncology internship at Tripler and residency at UC San Francisco.

Between those two segments of his specialty training, he went to boot camp—the medical officers’ version, anyway.

“It was kind of like ‘boot camp lite,’” Stickney said. “I had my captain’s stripes on, and I outranked my instructors—that made it easier.”

In 2004, he headed back to Hawaii. There he stayed until September 2010, when he headed off for an eight-month tour of duty as a brigade surgeon in Afghanistan.

The term “brigade surgeon” may be a bit of a misnomer—at least in Stickney’s case, because he is not a surgeon, and his duties rarely required him to treat injuries more serious than cuts requiring stitches.

Bearing the rank of major, Stickney “wore several hats,” he explained:

• He served as brigade surgeon for the 101st Airborne Battalion, practicing general medicine. (“People with major trauma got sent to a hospital,” he said. “The Army calls you a surgeon, but we [brigade surgeons] don’t do surgery.”)

• He ran a level-one aid station. (“A plywood-wall hut with no running water, but electricity.”)

• He oversaw the medical support for convoys in northern and eastern Afghanistan, with approximately 25 medics under his command. (That was a joint mission with the Navy and Air Force as well as the Army.)

• He conducted training missions for Afghan doctors at Afghan bases.

• He traveled to Afghan villages to help provide medical care to residents.

“There really is no ‘front’ there,” Stickney explained, contrasting the conflict with more traditional warfare. “The greatest risk was when I traveled. The closest I ever came to the fighting was driving around.”

Still, the risks to life and limb weighed on him—at least at first.

“The first time the mortar fire hits and the alarms go off, it’s scary,” he said. “After a while it becomes normal—you’re deciding whether you even want to get out of bed. You realize that if you were going to die in the attack, it would have happened already.

“I don’t feel like I was in danger of my life all the time.”

Stickney returned to his home base in May 2011 for the final year of his enlistment. Leaving Hawaii “wasn’t necessarily by choice,” he said, “but I didn’t go kicking and screaming, either.”

His parents live in the Sacramento area, and his in-laws live in Cerritos. Chico puts him in much closer proximity to close family. Plus, he’ll be able to live the outdoors lifestyle—skiing and backpacking—with a lot more space.

In Pearl City, the Stickneys lived in off-base housing. Their three-bedroom home was built in 1962 with single-wall construction—no insulation, just redwood panels for walls and a roof made of cedar. At 1,800 square feet, it’s one of the largest houses in the area, yet all four of his children (a 12-year-old son, 10-year-old daughter, 8-year-old son and 6-year-old son) share a bedroom.

In Chico, his eldest son and daughter will be able to have their own rooms; the youngest two still want to remain bunkmates.

“Chico is so nice,” Stickney said. “It’s got the benefits of a city that’s not too large but with amenities and closeness to the mountains.”

Likewise, he is happy with the offerings at the Enloe Regional Cancer Center, which earlier this year made a multimillion-dollar upgrade to its radiation equipment.

“I like toys,” Stickney said. “I like technology.”

Mission accomplished.