Daniel Valaik, MD, a new hip and knee replacement surgeon at Riverside Doctors' Hospital in Williamsburg, Va., credits his time as a U.S. Navy SEAL with his growth as a doctor.
Dr. Valaik worked with the military for 26 years, six of those as a SEAL, according to a Nov. 11 report from WY Daily. He retired from service in 2009.
In the Navy, he helped care for wounded soldiers.
"Having taken care of the worst of the worst injuries in the past, you kind of have seen it all and done it all," he told the publication. "At times it was pretty hard even as a surgeon to keep dealing with such severe injuries, yet after all that I really learned a lot."
Since retiring from the military, he worked as a surgeon with the John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and was regional chief of the Johns Hopkins National Capital Region Orthopedic Surgery division.