Iraq war vet armed with degree to battle virus
He plans to work in state after California residency
He’s an Army combat veteran, a father of four, and he just finished four years of medical school.
Now Dr. Chris Zeman of Wausau is jumping into the fight against COVID-19 as a resident doctor-in-training at the Ventura County Medical Center in California. He’ll be leaving in early June to start a three-year program, a pathway for him to come back to north central Wisconsin to practice family medicine.
He’ll be working in both a hospital and clinical setting, and he expects COVID-19 to be a part of his practice and training.
The 37-year-old Zeman’s journey to medicine wasn’t a direct one. It included a tour in Iraq as a communications officer. It included the early birth of his third child, who suffered from a rare and life-threatening birth defect. And it included late nights and early mornings as he worked to balance family life and his studies at the Medical College of Wisconsin-Central Wisconsin in Wausau.
All that has primed him to get to work amid a pandemic that has sickened more than 1.4 million Americans and led to more than 89,000 deaths in the U.S.
“It’s sort of my perspective that you’ve got to help in a crisis, and it’s affecting society at large in a way we’ve
never seen before,” Zeman said. “But this is, I think with my military background, and being able to more or less roll with the punches, something I’m particularly suited to.”
It never occurred to Zeman to become a doctor when he was growing up in South Milwaukee, or when he studied biology at Ripon College. When he was a freshman at Ripon, he took an ROTC course “more to see what the class was like” than from an interest in joining the military.
That all changed in the beginning for his sophomore year when America was attacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. He felt a call to duty and signed up. After he finished college, he entered active duty as an officer in the Signal Corps, which sets up communications systems including satellite, phone and radio networks.
While on a tour in Iraq, in 2008-09, he saw what top notch medical care could do. “I had a few soldiers who are alive today because of some really excellent medics and some really talented doctors at the base who were able to keep some of my co-workers alive,” Zeman said.
Still, he didn’t think of becoming one of them. He stayed in the Army, eventually becoming a Special Forces team leader. When he left active service, he and his wife, Megan, moved to her hometown, Rhinelander.
“I thought it would be easy to walk out of the military, in which I had 10 years of leadership and management experience, to find some sort of position,” Zeman said.
He was wrong.
He ended up selling appliances at Home Depot. “It was a far cry from what I had done,” he said. “And I really was at a crossroads as far as what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”
That’s when he and Megan learned she was pregnant with their third child.
Doctors found that the child had gastroschisis, a hole in the abdominal wall.
“That causes intestines and other things to float out and cause some trouble,” Zeman said. “It definitely was a scary experience. And it the time it seemed like it took a really long time to get the doctors appointments we need or get set up with ultrasound technicians to do diagnostic procedures.”
That flipped a switch inside of Zeman, and he decided to enter the medical field. He and Megan and their older children, Aida and Elijah, moved to River Falls, where he began studies to become a physician’s assistant.
Megan, still pregnant, went in for a checkup with a doctor in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. “The baby was distressed, so that 33-week checkup turned into an emergency C-section,” Zeman said. “And our daughter was born at 4 pounds, 3 ounces, and spent maybe four to five weeks in the hospital in the Twin Cities. And we just had some outstanding, outstanding care.”
Today, that baby, Evelyn, is 6 years old and “doing great,” he said. “She’s bigger than everyone else in her class. But at the time, it was definitely a scary experience.”
Zeman decided to shelve his idea of becoming a physician’s assistant and go for a full-on medical degree.
He’s not sure what exactly will be in store for him in California, but he’s happy to be going there because the program offers a wide range of training and experiences. He wants to learn and work, and then he’ll return to Wisconsin to work for Wausau-based Aspirus, which helped pay for his medical training.
“I’m contractually obliged to come back to work for them,” Zeman said. “We’re definitely coming back.”
Just a few weeks ago, Zeman and Megan had their fourth child, Cora. She’s healthy, but will add a bit more challenge to Zeman’s new life. He thinks he’s ready for that, too.
“I don’t want to say that I’m not the kind to get overwhelmed,” he said. “But I just don’t think that time is yet.”