My name is Amy Pooran, and I’d like to introduce the Kos community to my husband, Dr. Milad Pooran. He’s a critical care doctor and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air National Guard, and he’s running for Congress in Maryland’s 6th District.
But not for the next five weeks. Yesterday afternoon, he deployed on a mission to transport critically wounded soldiers back from war. He’ll be away until the end of January. During his deployment, he can’t campaign. So a lot of people are pitching in to help him while he helps our wounded service men and women.
I’ll tell you some more about the campaign, and Milad’s mission, a little later. But first I want to tell you about Milad the person and husband.
I am a critical care pediatric nurse working at Children’s National Medical Center, which is where I met Milad over five years ago. I was working in the pediatric intensive care unit, and my husband-to-be was completing his fellowship there just after his deployment to Iraq as a combat medic.
We were immediately friends, bonding over our similarities and shared experiences. Over the next four years, Milad and I traveled, fell in love and supported one another as our shared desire for helping others took us around the world. Milad traveled to Antarctica in 2007 and then to Germany in 2009 with the Air National Guard, while I traveled to Uganda in 2009 and 2010 with the Children’s Heart Project. Milad’s devotion and passion for his country brought him on missions to all seven continents.
Yesterday afternoon, he left for another deployment. Milad will be leading a Critical Care Air Transport Team (CCATT) for the next 30 days to bring critically injured soldiers home to Andrews Air Force Base. Milad volunteered for CCATT two years ago – before he decided to run for Congress – and underwent five weeks of intensive training this past summer.
Running for office is a natural progression for Milad. He and his parents immigrated to the US from Iran when he was six years old. His parents wanted a better life for him, and taught him about service and community.
He learned well, and has served his country for 13 years with the Air Force as a flight surgeon, and seven years in public health with his work on HIV/AIDS research at the National Institutes of Health, and in the Secretary's office at Health and Human Services. Milad’s intrinsic desire to help others has grown from the bedside to Capitol Hill. He is a natural leader with the motivation to heal the wounds of our government.
Milad is already a little bit of an underdog in his race, and during his deployment, he won’t be able to campaign or even make fundraising calls. He’s running against a state senator and former lobbyist who’s favored by the Annapolis leadership, a former county councilwoman, and a multi-millionaire investment banker. His being away for five important weeks 100 days from the primary is probably going to make the race even harder.
But I am so proud of him, I am proud to know that the men and women who serve and protect our country have a physician and colleague at their side that cares as much as my husband does. I will miss him dearly and look forward to our brief phone calls and emails.
(One of my proudest moments recently was when his campaign manager asked him if he could get out of the mission since there was less than 100 days until the primary. Milad said “I probably could, but I’m not going to. If I did, someone else would have to do it.”)
While he’s away, I’ll be making his public appearances, his mom and dad will be making fundraising calls, and his many friends will all be pitching in. We all know it’s worth it.
If you’d like to learn more, or even pitch in yourself, I hope you’ll visit Milad’s website.
If you'd like to learn more about CCATT, here's an article about it.
Thank you, and I will keep you posted.