Experts: Vets need more comprehensive care

Experts: Vets need more comprehensive care

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Friday May 8, 2009 12:36:05 EDT

When an improvised explosive device blew up in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, Derek McGinnis, a former Navy corpsman, lost the bottom half of one leg.

But during a session about the importance of dealing with pain management while working with veterans with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, McGinnis found that no one seemed to believe him when he spoke of the great pain he felt in the remaining half of his leg months later.

Because the explosive had left bits of metal shrapnel in his leg, doctors couldn’t use an MRI to scan his thigh for other problems. Instead, they acted as if the pain were all in his head.

“It hurt not to be believed,” he told an audience of care providers May 7 at the Coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans’ conference in Washington, D.C.
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Vets need more comprehensive care