‘So Others May Live’: Navy to Showcase Two of Its Top Medical Facilities

Psychiatrists attending this year’s Annual Meeting in San Diego will have an opportunity to visit two of the nation’s premier medical facilities in the U.S. Navy as part of APA’s 2017 EduTour to Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) and USNS Mercy, a Navy hospital ship.

It’s a chance to get out of the San Diego Convention Center and see two of the city’s proudest institutions. Participants will leave the San Diego Convention Center at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, May 22, and return at 3 p.m.

NMCSD, located in Balboa Park, boasts cutting-edge services for active-duty personnel in first-episode psychosis (FEP) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Psychiatrist and Navy Lt. Michael Hann, M.D., said the FEP program at NMCSD is unique for the rapid identification of psychosis symptoms and treatment that active-duty personnel showing signs of psychosis receive.

“We have a very short duration of untreated [DUP] psychosis, vastly shorter than in the civilian arena,” he told Psychiatric News. “We measure that in a matter of weeks at most. Someone on a carrier showing signs of psychosis is very easily identified, so we get to some very early treatment. The sooner the intervention, the better for the patient.” (A large body of literature links DUP to long-term outcome in psychosis).

The medical center is also home to the Overcoming Adversity and Stress Injury Support (OASIS) program. “This program is for people with severe PTSD that is treatment refractory or requiring a higher level of care than routine outpatient treatment,” Hann said.

Care is provided seven days a week for 10 to 12 weeks, and service members reside within the facility while they receive treatment. Services include weekly individual psychotherapy, daily group psychotherapy, family skills training, medication management, intensive sleep retraining, vocational rehabilitation, and complementary rehabilitation such as yoga and meditation led by experts in these fields.

Tour participants will also see a presentation on the medical center’s Wounded Warrior Battalion—a paraprofessional command battalion embedded in the hospital to support the recovery of active-duty personnel referred for treatment—the center’s patient simulation center, and the Bio Skills Center, where surgeons can practice their skills.

In the afternoon, participants will depart the medical center for a tour of USNS Mercy, one of two Navy hospital ships. Mercy primarily operates in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Her inaugural mission in 1987 was a humanitarian cruise to the Philippines and South Pacific. Her first military mission was serving coalition troops in the first Persian Gulf War. The first disaster relief came in the wake of the 2004 tsunami as Operation Unified Assistance. Her latest was in 2013, when she came to the aid of the Philippines and other nations in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.

“San Diego is a Navy town, so I would encourage members who are coming to the meeting to take the opportunity to come and see some of the programs of which we are so proud,” Hann said. ■

“Edutour: Naval Medical Center San Diego Base Balboa and a Ship Tour” will be held Mon-day, May 22, 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Tickets, which cost $69, must be bought by Saturday, April 3, through the registration portal.