Catawba College will honor two of its alumni during Homecoming Weekend activities, slated October 8-10.
LTC Chester C. “Trip” Buckenmaier III, M.D. ’86 of Gambrills, Md. and D. Bryan Jordan ’84 of Vestavia Hills, Ala., will be recognized with Catawba’s Distinguished Alumnus Awards. These awards are given annually by the Alumni Association Board of Directors to alumni who have served their community, distinguished themselves in their profession, and have served the Catawba College community.
The award presentation will take place at noon, Saturday, Oct. 9, during a barbecue luncheon scheduled in the Goodman Gymnasium.
Dr. Buckenmaier is chief of the regional anesthesia section with the U.S. Army at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He served four months in Iraq last year and is currently doing extensive research in battlefield anesthesiology. In addition to applying for and receiving many government and corporate grants to support this research, he often speaks on the subject and makes presentations. He is also in the process of writing chapters in several medical text books.
Following his graduation from Catawba, Buckenmaier earned his master of science degree in biology from East Carolina University and his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He and his wife have three daughters.
D. Bryan Jordan is executive vice president and chief financial officer of Regions Financial Corporation in Birmingham, Ala. Prior to his current position, he was employed with Peat, Marwick, Main & Co. and then First Union in Charlotte.
A member of Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church, Jordan serves as the United Way of Birmingham’s corporate campaign co-chair, and has participated in both Leadership Charlotte and Leadership Birmingham. He is a member of NCACP and AICPA and serves on Catawba’s Board of Visitors. He is married to wife Kimberly and the couple has three children.
SPECIAL MEDICAL PRESENTATION
While on campus for Catawba’s Homecoming Weekend, Dr. Buckenmaier will make a special presentation to which the public is invited concerning new methods of pain control on the modern battlefield. That presentation is scheduled at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8 in Tom Smith Auditorium of the Ralph Ketner Building.
Buckenmaier, along with Col. (Dr.) Jack Childs, the consultant to the Army surgeon general for anesthesia, started the Army’s regional anesthesia pain management initiative in 2000. Childs is now performing the procedure at the 31st Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad.
Buckenmaier says he initiated his research “out of concern about wounded soldiers being evacuated from the battlefield in excruciating pain.” The administration of regional anesthesia through a catheter, he and Childs found, can be administered to a specific area where the patient is experiencing pain. This allows allows doctors to block signals to the brain from the wound region, providing improved battlefield pain control and for the administration of longer-lasting anesthesia.
The procedure, he explains, does not require a lot of equipment and allows patients to maintain their sensorium providing “excellent conditions for a surgeon to do his job.” Regional anesthesia pain management is an alternative to morphine, the traditional battlefield drug, first systemized in 1803, to control pain.
