Director of VA "Center of Excellence" investigated for misconduct

Complaint lodged against director of Waco VA Center for Excellence

Waco Herald Tribune
Tommy Witherspoon
February 1, 2019

A high-ranking research center official at the Doris Miller Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Waco is under investigation after a VA psychologist lodged a formal complaint against him.

VA officials have reassigned Dr. Michael Russell, director of the Center of Excellence for Research on Returning War Veterans, for at least 120 days while authorities investigate misconduct complaints against him by psychologist Bryann DeBeer, a Waco-based VA investigator and researcher in the fields of suicide prevention and post-traumatic stress disorder.

DeBeer hired Waco attorney David Schleicher to document her complaints in a nine-page letter to top VA officials dated Jan. 17. General allegations of misconduct in the letter include abuses of authority, misuse of resources, Hatch Act violations, violations of hiring procedures and gender discrimination, which DeBeer claims has driven away female employees.

Russell, a clinical neuro- psychologist who retired as a lieutenant colonel after 24 years in the Army, said Friday he is precluded by VA policy from discussing the complaint and deferred comment to his attorney, Jon Ker, who also is a longtime Army veteran and retired colonel.

Ker said Russell denies the allegations in Schleicher’s letter and warned others not to rush to judgment or read too much into the fact that Russell has been reassigned during the investigation.
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Intrepid Spirit Center at Fort Bragg Opens At Fort Bragg

Fort Bragg facility to address soldiers’ PTSD, depression, brain injuries
WNCN News
By Nate Rodgers
Published: April 1, 2016

The 25,000-square-foot facility is considered state of the art with a gymnasium, several conference rooms and various multi-purpose spaces. The 11-million dollar project was funded through the Intrepid Fallen Heroes fund.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, traumatic brain injury are all among the wounds soldiers are carrying home. Fort Bragg has opened a place to tackle these demons of war.

The Intrepid Spirit Center at Fort Bragg, which expects to service nearly 1,700 soldiers annually, is the fifth of nine centers of its kind built around the country.

It’s a house for hope and healing, officials say.

The center is a one-stop shop specifically geared to help service members with traumatic brain injury, chronic pain and behavior health.

“There are psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, something that I never took advantage of during my military career,” said Col. Paul Rounsaville, who served for more than 28 years.

Last year, Col. Rounsaville was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. Until receiving treatment, he’d go 3-5 days without sleep. He says his brain just wouldn’t shut down.
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Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund begins centers for TBI and PTSD

Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund Breaks Ground on Two New $11M Centers to Treat Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress in America's Wounded Military Service Members
PRWeb
Wednesday, June 13, 2012

First Two of Several Centers to be Built in Fort Belvoir, VA and Camp Lejeune

Thousands of American service members living with traumatic head injuries from exposure to IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan will be able to get the treatment they deserve when two new centers are opened at Fort Belvoir, VA and Camp LeJeune, NC. With the groundbreakings today at each location for the new National Intrepid Centers of Excellence (NICoE), there is new hope for those suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress (PTS).

These crucial research and treatment centers will be financed and built by the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF), which today announced a $100 million capital campaign to support the effort. The first two centers, and others that will follow, will be placed at military bases and medical centers around the country to provide medical care for service members without having to separate them from their units, or leave their families, for extended periods of treatment. This proximity to family and unit is expected to enhance care and rehabilitation.
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Fisher family to open new TBI mental health center

New TBI, mental health center to open in June

By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 20, 2010 10:17:57 EDT

A new 72,000-square-foot center for treatment of service members and veterans diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and psychological health conditions will open June 24 at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

The National Intrepid Center of Excellence, to be funded by private donations, is a project of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, a nonprofit organization begun by the Fisher family for supporting service members and their families.

The family is well known in the military community for its Fisher Houses, which provide low- or no-cost lodging for families of wounded or injured service members undergoing medical treatment or rehabilitation.
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New TBI, mental health center to open in June

We Owe it to Them

We Owe it to Them
By Arnold Fisher
Traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychological impairment... all medical jargon, are perilous threats to our military personnel. Hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women will return from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan with some form of complex psychological health issue. For this reason, the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF) has undertaken the project of raising $70 million to fund the construction of a state-of-the-art facility to treat soldiers with these disorders. Once completed, the IFHF will turn over the facility to the government to operate.

This is the second project of this kind the IFHF has taken on. In January 2007, the IFHF opened a center to treat physical injuries called the Center for the Intrepid at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. It is now the finest military physical rehabilitation center for military amputees in the world, all privately paid for by over 600,000 Americans.

The new center, to be called the National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (NICoE), will be located at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in suburban Washington D.C. The hope is to have enough funds committed to the project for it to be completed next year. It will be a 75,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art treatment and rehabilitation center and a place where scientists from around the world will gather to share their research.

Unfortunately, this is a much tougher project to accomplish because mental and brain injuries are not visible to the untrained eye. Soldiers can be living with problems that no one can see. And, problems such as post traumatic stress disorder can surface years later if left untreated.

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