Vet Disability System Needs Overhaul, Report Says

Modern weapons, like IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, have left many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan with debilitating injuries, while advances in trauma care have ensured their survival and return home to cope with those unique injuries, relying on a VA system that is antiquated and can't support their physical and emotional needs, according to a report released Thursday by the Institute of Medicine. Trauma surgeon Andre Campbell, MD, and health policy expert Ed Yelin, PhD, a member of the committee that released the report, talk to KPIX-TV about the veterans, and describe what's needed to give them adequate medical care. Campbell is chief of the medical staff at San Francisco General Hospital and associate professor of clinical surgery and chair of surgical education at UCSF. Yelin is professor in residence of medicine and health policy in the Division of Rheumatology and the Institute for Health Policy Studies, and is director of the Arthritis Research Group and of the Work and Health Program at UCSF. Related Links: Vet Disability System Needs Overhaul, Report Says KPIX-TV (CBS), June 7, 2007 A 21st Century System for Evaluating Veterans for Disability Benefits Institute of Medicine, June 7, 2007