News

It's been widely reported that Army SGT John Russell on his third deployment in Iraq killed 5 active duty personnel at a combat stress clinic. Among those dead were Army Psychiatrist Matthew Houseal and Navy Social Worker CDR Charles Springle. This is shocking and sad news. Our hearts go out all the families impacted and especially those of the medical personnel dear to our heart.

Salon.com is featuring a story where a SGT in Fort Carson, Colorado audiotaped his psychologist telling him that he was pressured not to make a diagnosis of PTSD. The story also features a downloadable MP3 file where readers can listen to part of the recording.

The Army Surgeon General was reported in a recent Stars and Stripes article by Tom Philbot as saying AHLTA is a significant contributing factor to attrition of military medicine personnel. The Deputy Surgeons General from the Navy and Air Force were also described as having similar remarks. Efforts by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Dr. Ward Cascells to fix the problems are also detailed.

Stripes is reporting that the DoD has rejected the idea that troops suffering from PTSD should be eligible for a Purple Heart. Here are a couple good quotes from the story:

from the we'll-do-anything-but-fix-the-underlying-problems dept.

The AP is reporting that the DoD is now recruiting foreign citizens to become medical officers:

WASHINGTON – Struggling to find enough doctors, nurses and linguists for the war effort, the Pentagon will temporarily recruit foreigners who have been living in the United States on student and work visas, or with refugee or political asylum status.