Women and war. What physicians should know.
Most of today's 1.7 million women veterans obtain all or most of their medical care outside the VA health care system, where their veteran status is rarely recognized or acknowledged. Several aspects of women's military service have been associated with adverse psychologic and physical outcomes, and failure to assess women's veteran status, their deployment status, and military trauma history could delay identifying or treating such conditions. Yet few clinicians know of women's military history--or of military service's impact on women's subsequent health and well being. Because an individual's military service may be best understood within the historical context in which it occurred, we provide a focused historical overview of women's military contributions and their steady integration into the Armed Forces since the War for Independence. We then describe some of the medical and psychiatric conditions associated with military service.
Murdoch
Maureen
M
Section of General Internal Medicine, Center for Chronic Disease Outcomes Research, Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Minneapolis, MN 55417, USA. Maureen.Murdoch@med.va.gov
Bradley
Arlene
A
Mather
Susan H
SH
Klein
Robert E
RE
Turner
Carole L
CL
Yano
Elizabeth M
EM
D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D008889:Military Personnel; D014481:United States; D014493:United States Department of Veterans Affairs / Q000639:trends*; D014857:Warfare; D014930:Women