Dr Dan Pronk - Special Forces Doctor on Trauma, Resilience & Building a Meaningful Life After Service

Dr. Dan Pronk is a former Australian Army Special Operations combat doctor, author, entrepreneur and leadership speaker. Dan originally pursued his goal of competing professionally in triathlon before gaining an Army scholarship to study medicine. Dan then went on to complete the demanding SASR selection course before joining Special Operations. Voodoo medicine...

was kind of the informal name if you like of special operations medical elements yeah and the the sort of informal catchphrase was dominating the dark arts and it just reflected this often very uh improvised form of medical support in these highly complex environments to do the best you can often under you know threat to your life to try and stabilize and preserve life to get people to high level of care and so it was often pretty loose and and i think that voodoo is is well utilized here because sometimes it was equal parts voodoo and evidence-based medicine The reality of treating someone who I knew and liked, which hits different to just the kind of nameless, faceless people I'd treated prior to that, when this is someone who, you know, and I'd had dealings with just hours prior when we were evacuating other casualties. So that hit different. Couldn't save him. So that was the first time I'd experienced losing a teammate. And it was on me. I was, you know, on the spot. Everyone was looking at me to try and save Brett. And I couldn't.

Welcome to the One True Measure podcast. Last episode of season one. It's been quite a journey. Really excited to have this gentleman on with us today. We spoke about it before coming on the podcast. Serendipitously, this was just one of those sorts of cool moments where unintentionally we've started with his brother and we're finishing the season with him. So very excited to talk to this gentleman today about his experiences as a combat doctor with special operations. post-traumatic stress, post-traumatic growth, resilience, and also at the same time talking about life and what it is to create a great life post-service and also just in general. So welcome to the podcast, Dr. Dan Pronk. How are you, Dan?

Awesome, Blake. Look, real privileged to be on the show and cool to hear that you're bookending the season with

prongs. Yeah. We'll come up with a nice little funny excerpt on that. We thought about that before starting there with a prong. But no, it's amazing to have you on, mate, to have this conversation today. And as part of the podcast, everyone gets an introduction. So Dr. Dan Pronk. is a former Australian Army Special Operations combat doctor, author, entrepreneur and leadership speaker. Dan originally pursued his goal of competing professionally in triathlon before gaining an Army scholarship to study medicine. Following his medical training, Dan then went on to complete the demanding SASR program selection course before joining Special Operations. During his military career, he served alongside both the SAS and 2 Commando Regiment, providing frontline medical care in high-risk combat environments on four deployments to Afghanistan. On his second deployment, he was awarded for accommodation for Distinguished Service for Leadership in Action.