[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
thank you very much I’m really thrilled
to be here today to talk to you about
the work I do at Stanford with military
medicine and the news and the news in
the form of literature and writing now
at first glance that may not be obvious
what the connections are between those
three disparate entities and my talk
today will be the story of how I came to
be doing this work and hopefully through
that story those connections will be
illuminated I’d also like to share
something with you today that I’ve
learned through this process and
hopefully we can take that out in the
world with you so I love that the theme
today is unchartered waters because that
is what I found myself in when I was on
this boat headed out to Alcatraz Island
to swim the mile and a half to aquatic
park I was participating in the veteran
swim challenge with several of my
student military affiliated students
from Stanford one of those students
Derek is a Navy SEAL and so I said to
Derek I am so glad you are doing the
swim because if something happens to me
you could save me and he said oh no Meah
I’m trying to kill a lot to see
you know we laugh later though it really
hit home to me again what it is we asked
our young men and women to do when they
join the military and that is you know
go through bootcamp training and Navy
SEAL training Army Ranger training to
get to the point where they have the
capacity to take another human life and
you know that’s not how we’re wired as
humans we are our instinctive impulses
for caring and compassion even young
babies show a tendency toward that and
we have part of our vagus nerve nervous
system that is activated when we are
feeling sympathy or sympathetic so the
military understands that so as the
Marines say we have to break you down to
build you back up with this training so
the whole problem with that is there’s
no reboot camp for when soldiers come
back home and so sometimes that
transition can be very difficult in
addition the worst Iraq and Afghanistan
have been the two longest wars in our
country’s history fought by less than 1%
of the population
compare that to world war two which is
half as long fought by 10% of population
so we have a very small population
carrying this this the burden of these
wars and today actually is March 20th
was the is the anniversary of our and
14 years ago so there’s an organization
wonderful organization in Iraq and
Afghanistan Veterans of America and they
have developed a PSA for people like
myself who do not have military
experience to understand what that
isolation might feel like when they come
home so I like to play that for you now
it’s just about a minute long
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
welcome home in
[Music]
[Music]
my experience with the military my
father and sister with me and when I was
about your age looking to go to
university I wanted to go to the Naval
Academy and I made it as far as the
medical physical and I remember it like
it was yesterday the doctor listening to
my heart realistic to my heart and
basically he found two ailments that
were minor but were major enough to keep
me out of the military so I went to plan
B and I went to the College of Wayman
Mary in Virginia and study history
English had a wonderful experience and
went on to a career in publications and
media relations and raised three
wonderful children and was not talking
about the military until about seven
years ago I was working on a medical
school in Texas and going to graduate
school in the field of medical
humanities and the arts and during that
time a friend of mine son completed
three tours when they are act and then
he came home and he died by suicide and
at the time I was trying to help my
friend through this process and
understand how someone could survive a
war and not the home country and in the
process I found out that more soldiers
had died from suicide
so this just broke my heart
well Part B elements kept me out of the
military
this is kind of worth eight and wanting
to help them someway re-engage me with
the military so Time magazine this was
2012 covered this epidemic that one on a
date of entering one a day had committed
suicide over a year and we actually now
know those numbers that are actually a
little bit larger so I have decided to
do my thesis work on this issue to to
look into what was happening and a
couple things physiologically divorces
Iraq and Afghanistan involved more IEDs
improvised explosive devices within any
of the conflicts we’ve ever been in and
these young men and women who are
fighting are over there for longer
employments and multiple deployments so
the concussive blast from IEDs and the
cortisol from being in constant fight
flight response causes physiological
changes to the brain and that leads to
things like TBI and post-traumatic
stress disorder but there was another
thing that was happening where soldiers
couldn’t talk about what happened they
just couldn’t tell their story and I
just called that post traumatic story
and disorder and there were multiple
factors that that went into that but
what I found was that my
either a story or a movie it was easier
for the veteran to then relate to the
incident in that Booker story and then
go on and talk about their experience so
while I was doing this and doing this
research I was working full-time at the
medical school and one day I got a
really tragic phone call that one of our
medical students had committed suicide
and it was a wonderful young man his
father was a physician in history with
professional musicians
and in helping his family they wanted to
set up a scholarship in Justin’s name
and also a program at the medical school
for medical students who might be
suffering from depression because they
discovered that their son indeed have
suffered from depression that couldn’t
reach out to help to ask for help
well worse than that just as dad got
hundreds of letters from physicians all
over the country talking about their
struggles with burnout and depression
and so at this point I saw very
seventeen this commonality between the
military and
in terms of a higher suicide rate than
the national average but also at the
same time two professions that we as a
society really elevating and admire a
recent piece the Pew Research study said
that those the medicine and military the
two highest was respected professions in
our country so I started to see other
similarities to hierarchy life and death
decisions extensive training uniforms
not being able to necessarily always
have control over where you’re going
either if it’s a residency match over a
good employee and then in talking to one
of the surgeons he said you know we’re
either a hero or a zero you know
something doesn’t go right in the
operating room there’s sort of no
in-between and when he said that I was
sick you know that’s a white coat you’re
wearing not a cape but I realized to
what I was hearing from physicians and
soldiers there were a lot of similar
things as having high expectations to
themselves and society having high
expectations as well so once I started
talking to the physicians I changed how
I interacted with doctors particularly
when I was sick and I would go in and I
would just about the first time I said
well how are you doing and she’s just
about fell off her chair in the office
to sort of surprise but I started to
hear their stories about you know how
difficult it is to tell a patient they
have an inoperable tumor or their child
is going to die and like the soldiers
they were carrying these stories with
them without sort of an outlet to share
so as a result of my thesis work I was
asked to leave a literature medicine
class at the VA hospital and this class
was developed by the Maine Humanities
Council as a way for the physicians at
Veterans Hospitals to better understand
the veteran experience because most of
them don’t have military experience
themselves and this proved to be a real
oasis for the physicians who you know
how much stressful day not only it
didn’t prove that their empathy for
their patients but and improve their job
satisfaction and connection with their
colleagues now I know at your stage in
life literature my neck might seem like
an oasis to you but what you’ve been out
in working and raised
to reagent that heartburn can be quite
refreshing and rejuvenating so it’s
really thrilled when it came to Stanford
to have the chance to work with the
position Wellness Committee there and
dr. Bini Valerie to create this Liberty
Medicine dinner and a special series and
since we don’t treatments the veteran is
there at the hospital what we read our
stories by doctors about doctors by
patients about patients by writers
everybody from Oliver Sacks
to Mary Oliver to Abraham Verghese to
Rebecca Solnit
and Ursula Glynn just a whole variety
and so they did that I think I decided I
really would love to do this for our
military affiliated students and then I
found out that the creative writing
program at Stanford was actually
inspired by the World War two veterans
coming home and Wallace Stegner famous
writer who started the program said his
students had so much the same or such
gifted writers and so I was fortunately
fortunate that what to do that and I
have learned so much from the students
in the class we read or literature than
we do
different writings that face on
different prompts either the reading or
what we talked about and so one of the
things I wanted to share with you today
is that you know we as a society we we
were into this thank you for your
service that we stayed to veterans and
that’s great but we can extend that
conversation and very easily and to just
ask the next question like what was it
like over there or would you choose that
branch of service or something I think
that were basic than that and one of my
classes I asked what’s it like to make
vision goggles like all of us probably
see that in movies or a video game but
what was that like so one of my students
George actually wrote a beautiful poem
about what that’s like and so in the
spirit of perhaps looking with new eyes
at the people who serve us in her life
in the military medicine and the medical
field I’d like to close by reading
George’s couple
night vision by George Hodgins the sky
is inviting when it is green I once
counted 12 shooting stars in a five
minute span while kneeling on an Afghan
plateau waiting on a helicopter to see
one others chant with the flick of my
head and the power of a double-a battery
I became Superman I could watch their
green lands as other supermen silently
entered windows climbed aboard ships at
sea or walked through the mountains I
had a front-row seat to a show that the
human eye was not meant to see my
purpose was clear when everything was
Green Green hides the color of blood it
makes eye contact as impossible and man
does it light up the night sky thank you
[Applause]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
thank you very much I’m really thrilled
to be here today to talk to you about
the work I do at Stanford with military
medicine and the news and the news in
the form of literature and writing now
at first glance that may not be obvious
what the connections are between those
three disparate entities and my talk
today will be the story of how I came to
be doing this work and hopefully through
that story those connections will be
illuminated I’d also like to share
something with you today that I’ve
learned through this process and
hopefully we can take that out in the
world with you so I love that the theme
today is unchartered waters because that
is what I found myself in when I was on
this boat headed out to Alcatraz Island
to swim the mile and a half to aquatic
park I was participating in the veteran
swim challenge with several of my
student military affiliated students
from Stanford one of those students
Derek is a Navy SEAL and so I said to
Derek I am so glad you are doing the
swim because if something happens to me
you could save me and he said oh no Meah
I’m trying to kill a lot to see
you know we laugh later though it really
hit home to me again what it is we asked
our young men and women to do when they
join the military and that is you know
go through bootcamp training and Navy
SEAL training Army Ranger training to
get to the point where they have the
capacity to take another human life and
you know that’s not how we’re wired as
humans we are our instinctive impulses
for caring and compassion even young
babies show a tendency toward that and
we have part of our vagus nerve nervous
system that is activated when we are
feeling sympathy or sympathetic so the
military understands that so as the
Marines say we have to break you down to
build you back up with this training so
the whole problem with that is there’s
no reboot camp for when soldiers come
back home and so sometimes that
transition can be very difficult in
addition the worst Iraq and Afghanistan
have been the two longest wars in our
country’s history fought by less than 1%
of the population
compare that to world war two which is
half as long fought by 10% of population
so we have a very small population
carrying this this the burden of these
wars and today actually is March 20th
was the is the anniversary of our and
14 years ago so there’s an organization
wonderful organization in Iraq and
Afghanistan Veterans of America and they
have developed a PSA for people like
myself who do not have military
experience to understand what that
isolation might feel like when they come
home so I like to play that for you now
it’s just about a minute long
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
welcome home in
[Music]
[Music]
my experience with the military my
father and sister with me and when I was
about your age looking to go to
university I wanted to go to the Naval
Academy and I made it as far as the
medical physical and I remember it like
it was yesterday the doctor listening to
my heart realistic to my heart and
basically he found two ailments that
were minor but were major enough to keep
me out of the military so I went to plan
B and I went to the College of Wayman
Mary in Virginia and study history
English had a wonderful experience and
went on to a career in publications and
media relations and raised three
wonderful children and was not talking
about the military until about seven
years ago I was working on a medical
school in Texas and going to graduate
school in the field of medical
humanities and the arts and during that
time a friend of mine son completed
three tours when they are act and then
he came home and he died by suicide and
at the time I was trying to help my
friend through this process and
understand how someone could survive a
war and not the home country and in the
process I found out that more soldiers
had died from suicide
so this just broke my heart
well Part B elements kept me out of the
military
this is kind of worth eight and wanting
to help them someway re-engage me with
the military so Time magazine this was
2012 covered this epidemic that one on a
date of entering one a day had committed
suicide over a year and we actually now
know those numbers that are actually a
little bit larger so I have decided to
do my thesis work on this issue to to
look into what was happening and a
couple things physiologically divorces
Iraq and Afghanistan involved more IEDs
improvised explosive devices within any
of the conflicts we’ve ever been in and
these young men and women who are
fighting are over there for longer
employments and multiple deployments so
the concussive blast from IEDs and the
cortisol from being in constant fight
flight response causes physiological
changes to the brain and that leads to
things like TBI and post-traumatic
stress disorder but there was another
thing that was happening where soldiers
couldn’t talk about what happened they
just couldn’t tell their story and I
just called that post traumatic story
and disorder and there were multiple
factors that that went into that but
what I found was that my
either a story or a movie it was easier
for the veteran to then relate to the
incident in that Booker story and then
go on and talk about their experience so
while I was doing this and doing this
research I was working full-time at the
medical school and one day I got a
really tragic phone call that one of our
medical students had committed suicide
and it was a wonderful young man his
father was a physician in history with
professional musicians
and in helping his family they wanted to
set up a scholarship in Justin’s name
and also a program at the medical school
for medical students who might be
suffering from depression because they
discovered that their son indeed have
suffered from depression that couldn’t
reach out to help to ask for help
well worse than that just as dad got
hundreds of letters from physicians all
over the country talking about their
struggles with burnout and depression
and so at this point I saw very
seventeen this commonality between the
military and
in terms of a higher suicide rate than
the national average but also at the
same time two professions that we as a
society really elevating and admire a
recent piece the Pew Research study said
that those the medicine and military the
two highest was respected professions in
our country so I started to see other
similarities to hierarchy life and death
decisions extensive training uniforms
not being able to necessarily always
have control over where you’re going
either if it’s a residency match over a
good employee and then in talking to one
of the surgeons he said you know we’re
either a hero or a zero you know
something doesn’t go right in the
operating room there’s sort of no
in-between and when he said that I was
sick you know that’s a white coat you’re
wearing not a cape but I realized to
what I was hearing from physicians and
soldiers there were a lot of similar
things as having high expectations to
themselves and society having high
expectations as well so once I started
talking to the physicians I changed how
I interacted with doctors particularly
when I was sick and I would go in and I
would just about the first time I said
well how are you doing and she’s just
about fell off her chair in the office
to sort of surprise but I started to
hear their stories about you know how
difficult it is to tell a patient they
have an inoperable tumor or their child
is going to die and like the soldiers
they were carrying these stories with
them without sort of an outlet to share
so as a result of my thesis work I was
asked to leave a literature medicine
class at the VA hospital and this class
was developed by the Maine Humanities
Council as a way for the physicians at
Veterans Hospitals to better understand
the veteran experience because most of
them don’t have military experience
themselves and this proved to be a real
oasis for the physicians who you know
how much stressful day not only it
didn’t prove that their empathy for
their patients but and improve their job
satisfaction and connection with their
colleagues now I know at your stage in
life literature my neck might seem like
an oasis to you but what you’ve been out
in working and raised
to reagent that heartburn can be quite
refreshing and rejuvenating so it’s
really thrilled when it came to Stanford
to have the chance to work with the
position Wellness Committee there and
dr. Bini Valerie to create this Liberty
Medicine dinner and a special series and
since we don’t treatments the veteran is
there at the hospital what we read our
stories by doctors about doctors by
patients about patients by writers
everybody from Oliver Sacks
to Mary Oliver to Abraham Verghese to
Rebecca Solnit
and Ursula Glynn just a whole variety
and so they did that I think I decided I
really would love to do this for our
military affiliated students and then I
found out that the creative writing
program at Stanford was actually
inspired by the World War two veterans
coming home and Wallace Stegner famous
writer who started the program said his
students had so much the same or such
gifted writers and so I was fortunately
fortunate that what to do that and I
have learned so much from the students
in the class we read or literature than
we do
different writings that face on
different prompts either the reading or
what we talked about and so one of the
things I wanted to share with you today
is that you know we as a society we we
were into this thank you for your
service that we stayed to veterans and
that’s great but we can extend that
conversation and very easily and to just
ask the next question like what was it
like over there or would you choose that
branch of service or something I think
that were basic than that and one of my
classes I asked what’s it like to make
vision goggles like all of us probably
see that in movies or a video game but
what was that like so one of my students
George actually wrote a beautiful poem
about what that’s like and so in the
spirit of perhaps looking with new eyes
at the people who serve us in her life
in the military medicine and the medical
field I’d like to close by reading
George’s couple
night vision by George Hodgins the sky
is inviting when it is green I once
counted 12 shooting stars in a five
minute span while kneeling on an Afghan
plateau waiting on a helicopter to see
one others chant with the flick of my
head and the power of a double-a battery
I became Superman I could watch their
green lands as other supermen silently
entered windows climbed aboard ships at
sea or walked through the mountains I
had a front-row seat to a show that the
human eye was not meant to see my
purpose was clear when everything was
Green Green hides the color of blood it
makes eye contact as impossible and man
does it light up the night sky thank you
[Applause]
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