Military medicine
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Increasingly, physicians find themselves in demanding leadership positions. However, leadership education for medical trainees remains lacking with most physicians reporting that they are ill-equipped to tackle the challenges of leadership. Here, we set out to describe the Feagin Leadership Program (FLP) and assess its reception and impact on trainees over the past 12 years. ⋯ Over the last 12 years, the FLP has demonstrated a high perceived impact on personal growth, leadership proficiency, and the decision to pursue leadership positions in medicine. The current dearth of leadership education for surgical trainees can best be addressed with models such as the FLP, with adoption benefiting medical trainees, the medical community, and patients they serve.
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The demands of operational deployment mean that defense force personnel must be dentally fit. Although medical evacuation for dental causes should be avoided, dental emergencies are a major non-combat-related contributor to withdrawal from deployment. Information on the oral health status of recruits and officer cadets entering the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) is scarce, yet it is useful for service and workforce planning. We investigated oral health status and its associations in new recruits and officer cadets entering the NZDF over a 13-month period. ⋯ Recruits' oral health was acceptable, but potentially problematic third molars were common, indicating a need for careful assessment (and their possible removal) before operational deployment.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of Accelerated Resolution Therapy for PTSD Between Veterans With and Without Prior PTSD Treatment.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder commonly caused by a traumatic event(s) and prevalent among service members and veterans. Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is an emerging "mind-body" psychotherapy for PTSD that is generally briefer and less expensive than current first-line treatments, such as cognitive processing therapy (CPT) and prolonged exposure (PE) therapy. This study examined the results of ART for treatment of military-related PTSD, with stratification by prior PTSD treatment types, including service members/veterans with reported residual PTSD symptoms following receipt of first-line recommended psychotherapy. ⋯ In a brief treatment period, ART appears to result in substantial reductions in symptoms of PTSD among veterans, including those with residual PTSD symptoms after prior treatment with first-line psychotherapies endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs. These results suggest that ART be considered as a potential first-line treatment modality for veterans with PTSD.
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We aimed to evaluate the effect of the SARS-COV2 pandemic on chaplain utilization at Brooke Army Medical Center. Our hypothesis was that multiple pandemic-related factors led to a care environment with increased mental and spiritual stress for patients and their families, leading to an increased need for adjunct services such as chaplaincy. ⋯ This study demonstrates that factors related to the SARS-COV2 pandemic resulted in fewer chaplaincy consults in our inpatient setting. We did not find other reports of a change in the rate of chaplaincy consultation, but available reports suggest that many centers have had difficulty balancing the spiritual needs of patients with local exposure guidelines. Although fewer individual chaplain consults occurred during the SARS-COV2 pandemic, our chaplain service innovated by utilizing various phone, video, and web-based platforms to deliver spiritual support to our community. Our study also suggests that the patients most greatly affected by the pandemic have an increased need for spiritual support, especially at the end of life. Future studies in this subject should examine the effect of various types of chaplain services as they relate to the health and well-being of hospitalized patients.