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Oct. 29 Stanford Forum Explores War's Effect on Health Care, Medicine

Posted on: Monday, 20 October 2008, 15:00 CDT

Conversations about the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan tend to focus on whether we should be there and how we can bring them to a close. What's less discussed is how these conflicts will profoundly affect health care and academic medicine in the years to come.

The first event in a new series, the Stanford Health Policy Forum, will address that very issue with an Oct. 29 panel, "How war is changing medicine." The keynote speaker is Ken Kizer, MD, MPH, the former undersecretary for health who transformed the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs health-care system.

The forum will examine the unique injuries that have emerged from the current conflicts, the medical innovations that have resulted and the ways in which health-care providers and policymakers can address the changing medical and psychological needs of returning veterans.

"For every soldier who is killed, six soldiers suffer serious injuries in these wars--that's more than in any other conflict in history," said Keith Humphreys, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, who is an organizer of the forum. "We need to bring this reality home to academic medicine and make it part of the conversation as to what the nation should be doing for veterans and their families."

Humphreys noted that soldiers' lives are being saved by improvements in body armor, but they are returning with multiple traumatic injuries not seen before, as well as invisible and devastating injuries to the brain.

"Explosions that don't kill people can still produce closed-head brain injuries that we don't know how to detect. And we don't know what the long-term effects are of these injuries," Humphreys said.

Moreover, one in three returning soldiers who gets health care from the VA is seeking out mental health and addiction services, a far higher proportion than the VA has ever dealt with before, said Humphreys, an addiction expert who has helped Iraq rebuild its mental health system.

Humphreys will serve as moderator of the Oct. 29 program, together with Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the School of Medicine.

Other speakers include Craig Rosen, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Eugene Carragee, MD, professor and vice chair of orthopaedic surgery. Rosen is involved in a national VA effort to improve services for individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder and to train clinicians in evidence-based psychotherapy. Carragee has served since 1998 in the Special Operations Forces community and as a battalion and command surgeon with the U.S. Army, having done multiple tours of duty in Iraq.

The event will be held from 11 a.m. to noon in the Clark Center auditorium. It is free and open to the public, though space is limited. To reserve a spot, contact Lucy Wicks at lucy.wicks@stanford.edu or (650) 725-3339. The program is sponsored by the Dean's Office in the medical school.

Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions -- Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. For more information, please visit the Web site of the medical center's Office of Communication & Public Affairs at http://mednews.stanford.edu.

Source: Business Wire

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