Vietnam Vet, Dr. Joseph Boscarino on front line of PTSD

Doc helps raise PTSD awareness
BY DANIEL AXELROD
STAFF WRITER
05/20/2008
The survivor’s guilt, the pain and the nightmares of Vietnam combat revisited Joseph Boscarino following 9/11.


He and other commuters safely rode away on subway trains minutes before deadly debris filled the PATH station below the World Trade Center. At the time, Dr. Boscarino, an Army artillery unit corporal in Vietnam combat missions from 1964 to 1966, was a resear-cher studying post-traumatic stress disorder for the New York Academy of Medicine in Manhattan.

He is still on the front line of such research today as a senior medical investigator for Geisinger Health System in Danville. And, he is part of a companywide effort to raise awareness among clinicians about post-traumatic stress disorder — an anxiety disorder that can follow a terrifying ordeal.

Federal agencies often attempt to screen and treat soldiers for the condition. But many local veterans — who are often older, part-time soldiers returning from multiple deployments — only see family doctors, Dr. Boscarino said. So, Geisinger will soon add whether patients are military veterans and if they have a history of the disorder to their electronic medical files.

“We’re supposed to screen 100 percent of patients for cardiovascular disease; we screen for depression,” said Dr. Boscarino, 62, a Paterson, N.J., native. “We should screen all veterans” for the disorder.

Someday, Dr. Boscarino hopes Geisinger will add the same information to medical files for anyone who suffers from the stress disorder, including victims of domestic abuse.