Gallagher: Connecting military-to-civilian healthcare in East Texas – Tyler Morning Telegraph

Note: In this column, we want to honor our veterans in East Texas who provide health care services in a vast area of ​​38 counties.

History teaches us the connection of the past to the present in all of our lives, notably in the way medical innovations and health care were first made and how those innovations improved overall care for all of us. Through the exceptional service of our military, who first brought us life-saving plasma, triage and ambulatory care on the front lines during World War II.

In a historical account describing the life-saving efforts of our American soldiers in World War II, “Desperate Surgery in the Pacific War: Doctors and Damage Control for the American Wounded, 1941-1945,” explains Thomas Helling, MD. the inventive and ingenious thinking of the WWII medical teams who found plasma as a substitute for the blood of a trauma patient when whole blood was not available at the front. The wartime conditions test his dedication and set out to save his life.

What started as a high-speed fieldhouse would transform experimental medical care into high-quality, innovative care routinely applied as best practices in our hospitals today. Connecting the dots of military history with historical advances in medicine today is a tribute to those medical teams who served in WWII.

I had the privilege of reviewing books from Helling’s book reviewer for global military studies as published in my UNT.Academia.edu profile and I encourage you to read my review. Better yet, I encourage you to read his book.

Based on a strong work ethic to navigate complex policies and processes with great success, US Army Veteran Ali Birjandi, MBA, MHA has served as a heavy-duty mechanic to improve the operational effectiveness of military tanks to support the mission of our military veterans. Over the past 25 years, the airline has made improvements to ensure health care performance standards while saving medical costs in an increasingly expensive health care system. Today, Birjandi serves as VP of Operations and Performance Improvement at Christ Health of North Texas in Tyler.

Birjandi highlights Christ’s talent acquisition program, the ‘Christ SkillBridge Program’, which brings on board corporate leaders who give back to our veterans, so the brand’s strengths represent the military-to-civilian process as more and more veterans enter. civilian In 2022, Christ had 60 veterans who applied for the program.

“We want to honor our veterans at every stage of the transition process,” Birjandi said.

1SG Kandy Flowers served in the US Army as a dental technician before serving as a Recruiting Company First Sergeant who is now the Special Program Coordinator for Carter BloodCare. With 23 years of training, he enlisted in the US Army [12 years]Flowers applied her credit to the marketing department, which eventually landed her in her position at Carter BloodCare.

Flores has made numerous presentations in Texas high schools to recognize the organization of the Honor Heart program awards under the Student Programs & School Grants program at Carter BloodCare, assisting high school seniors who donate life-saving blood at least twice in the school blood drive.

During his deployment to Baghdad, Iraq, Flores was asked numerous times to turn a dental clinic into a blood donation site during a crisis in combat. “I now understand clearly how incredibly important it is to have blood ready before it is needed.”

Emphasis on one of the seven core values ​​of the US Army: SERVICE which represents “performing the job in the right place, at the right time, in the right uniform with a motivated mindset.”

To make life-saving transfusions possible, Carter BloodCare’s mission is to apply the value of service that our country’s veterans who continue to save lives, from combat and into civilian health care for you and me.

Today, Carter BloodCare expands its services through ETX, establishing one of the largest community blood centers in Texas.

With the largest expansion of health care by VA standards in East Texas, the first primary care of our veteran ETX, the Tyler VA Primary Care Clinic, opened in 2021 and is led by operations manager, Veteran Lehebron Farr, the primary care clinic offers physical optometry. It provides therapy, radiology, MRI, expanded mental health services and primary care, nutrition services, and specialty services to our Veterans region.

While we know that “everything is bigger in Texas,” the popular adage extends to the fact that “everything is bigger in East Texas.”

Tyler-country Lt michael raccoonDO, MBA returned home after traveling the world as a flight surgeon serving in the Medical Corps for the US Navy in a medical deployment and is now transferring his exceptional attention to detail on the civilian health front for GENERAL UT Health East. Texas Doctors in Whitehouse as a family medicine doctor treating our ETX natives and the elderly of our region with great respect as his father cares for the elderly in Bullard.

A testament to his ETX roots, the more Racs saw the world, the more he cut out his home where he was called to serve the ETX family in a constant and stable profession since last year July, navigating the turbulent waves of our health system with the care of the nation’s skilful crew. Character, he says, “beautiful seas never made a good sailor.”

UT Health East Texas offers him experiences to learn and grow in comprehensive aspects of the practice within the university setting, including administrative, corporate and academic.

With a good and steady stream of support from the UT health system network, Racs builds a structure of long-term doctor-patient relationships in our community and is happy to return home. “It’s great,” he said.

Enlighten the motto of the Offices of the Military Association of America [MOAA], ‘Never stop serving,’ US Army ret. Lt. Col. Jim Snow described how the dedication of military service to the civilian with the words, “because we retired does not mean that we stop serving.”

It does my heart good to know that our country’s health care system is growing healthier, as our veterans dedicate their civilian service to representing our ETX health care professionals, who deliver excellent care dutifully while continuing to save lives and save costs in the service of our country.

We’d love to hear from readers about your health care experiences and how we can continue to improve to better shape the future of veterans’ care in East Texas etxveterans@gmail.com