WASHINGTON - The DoD plans to cut its civilian workforce by 5% to 6% by the end of fiscal year 2018, including more than 5,000 from the Military Health System.

WASHINGTON — If Navy leadership has anything to do with it, the misleading stereotype of the drunken sailor or hard-drinking Marine will fade into the past.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military continues to use improper processes to diagnose significant numbers of servicemembers with pre-existing personality disorders (PD) and then discharge them, according to government documents obtained by an advocacy group.

WASHINGTON — When servicemembers commit suicide, a common misperception is that the extreme act is a response to traumatic battlefield experiences.

Menopause once was a barrier to women reaching the top ranks of the military because of concerns it could cause “irrational decisions.” Those attitudes have changed, with more than 200,000 women in active duty and more than 50 of them serving as generals and admirals. To better serve their needs, military medicine and VA are taking a close look at women’s health services, including menopause, as the female cohort grows older.

The introduction of extended-use combination oral contraceptives (COCs) in the last decade has helped many women accept the concept of avoiding a monthly bleed and reducing their menstrual periods and withdrawal bleeds to a few times per year. This search for fewer or no periods has also led to the continual use of COCs to suppress menstruation for extended periods of time. Could menstrual suppression be a useful alternative for women in the military, especially those who are deployed and have difficulty managing monthly blood flow?

WASHINGTON, DC—As more data is emerging on the short and long-term effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI), researchers are discovering that the injury affects women differently than it does men. Most notably, there seems to be a differential pattern of post-concussive symptoms among female compared to male OEF/OIF veterans with deployment–related TBI.

BETHESDA, MD—Due to its ability to track patient health data within its system and to orchestrate initiatives inside what is essentially a unified healthcare program, VA has played a pioneering role in showing how chronic disease treatment, such as for cardiovascular disease, can be improved over large swathes of a patient population.

WASHINGTON, DC—The White House recently introduced a government-wide effort to support military families outlined in its report, Strengthening Our Military Families.

WASHINGTON, DC—VHA and DoD have already recognized that they serve the same patients, just at different times during their lives. But it is only during the last few years that the two departments have thought of themselves as a true continuum of care, at least as far as mental health care is concerned, and have endeavored to ease the transition for patients from one system to the other.