Director's Message March 3, 2023

You can now go to the Windward CBOC between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. Monday through Friday for lab work. Currently, the results may not be available in your patient portal, but your Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) will call you with the results as soon as they are available. The Windward CBOC would also like to announce that they are hiring for medical technicians. Remember to check VA Pacific Islands Health Care System (VAPIHCS)’s job listings regularly if you or someone you know is looking for a job.

Leeward Staffing Changes

The Leeward CBOC recently bid farewell to two wonderful primary care physicians, Dr. Julie Andrada, and Dr. Curtis Nakatsu. We wish them fair winds and following seas in their future endeavors.  Mary Benito, chief of the Leeward CBOC, is working diligently to ensure that you are still getting the best care possible while our staff transitions to new primary care physicians. If you have concerns about who your Primary Care provider is, or if you’d like to discuss your options for where to get care, please give us a call at 1-800-214-1306. Staffing changes can be distressing, and we recognize that, but no matter who you see at VAPIHCS, you can be assured that you will be treated with dignity and respect, and that you will get the safe, compassionate, quality care that you have earned and deserve.

Women’s History Month

This month, VAPIHCS is proud to celebrate Women’s History Month. Women’s History Month is an annual opportunity to celebrate the contributions of women to the United States of America. Previously, the contributions of women were often left out of history books and glossed over by those in power. From suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to modern women like Oprah Winfrey and Vice President Kamala Harris, women have always been a big part of what makes this country great.

For veterans, a meaningful moment in Women’s History was January 24, 2007. That was the date that women were finally allowed to serve in combat positions. Of course, women have been serving in the military for centuries as nurses. However, they had to overcome decades of obstacles to get to where they are today: serving in greater numbers, in combat roles, and even in leadership positions.

Women’s struggle for rights to serve in the US military mirrors their struggle in society at large. Women were still not allowed to get credit cards or business loans until the end of the 1970’s, and each small victory from financial to social has taken effort. Today, we are much closer to true equality than we have ever been. Celebrating women’s history month is a big part of that ongoing work to build a more perfect union in our country. It’s important to remember that all our voices are needed to make this country great. Discrimination against women challenges our ability to reason together, and so we must work towards inclusion for the betterment of all.

Finally, I want to remind our Women Veterans -the highest growing population at VA- that we have a robust Women’s Health program. From lactation counseling to fertility treatment, we want to make sure that women-specific health care is available, and of the highest possible quality. Make an appointment with your primary care doctor today and ask about what services are available to you and how to access them.

National Social Work Month

In addition to Women’s History Month, March is also a time to celebrate our social workers. At VAPIHCS, we have social workers embedded in every department, because their work is critical to everything that we do.

Social workers help those in crisis when they call 988. They help veterans and their families to overcome cultural hurdles that make it hard for them to interface with western medical care. This years’ theme is “Social Work Breaks Barriers,” and that is an apt description of what they do. Social workers help eliminate the opaque feeling of bureaucracy and simplify paperwork to make care accessible. They have transformed millions of lives. Chances are that over the course of your lifetime, you, a family member, or a friend has been helped by a social worker.

The homeless program social workers empower veterans as they transition from experiencing homelessness to living in their own residences. The homeless program helps at-risk veterans to become engaged, valuable citizens who contribute positively to the communities where they live.

Jeraldine Nakamura has taken the lead on our care coordination and integrated case management, which is a new initiative aiming to break down silos and identify high-risk cases to make sure that they don’t get lost in the system.

Primary care social workers like Charlene Burgess on Kauai are always available to veterans who come to see their doctor. They step in when veterans are identified as needing extra help connecting with VA resources. They are also instrumental in helping veterans to identify useful programs in communities that have few services available.

At our Community Living Center (CLC), social workers keep veterans connected to their families, and help organize wonderful events like our annual Halloween party, which veterans really enjoy. They work hard to find ways to make veterans feel at home, rather than like they are stuck at a hospital.

Suicide prevention is a very important topic to me. Social workers comprise much of our suicide prevention team, and they work hard to help veterans who are struggling. This year, social workers are coordinating with local leadership in Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands to participate in their Governor’s challenge to reduce veteran suicide.

In honor of National Social Work Month, let’s take a moment to thank the social workers in our lives, and to be grateful for all that they do.

Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month

March is also Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex autoimmune disease that disrupts the flow of information from the brain to the body. It affects nearly 1 million people in the U.S., including 20,000 veterans who receive MS care and services through VA each year. MS is the most common disabling neurological disease of young adults, with symptom onset generally occurring between the ages of 20 to 40 years. Understanding someone with MS can be difficult since many symptoms are hidden and someone with MS may “look healthy” one day while experiencing a relapse the next day, going from well to un-well within a matter of hours. MS Awareness Month is a good chance for us to take a moment and remember that most autoimmune issues are invisible for some or all of the progression of the disease. You can’t always look at a person and immediately see how they are suffering.

VA has made significant investments in MS research and treatment through its MS Centers of Excellence. You can visit https://www.va.gov/MS/ to learn about MS and hear from veterans living with this chronic disease. You can also attend an educational talk about MS on March 15, 2023, to learn more about how this disease affects veterans and what risk factors to look out for.

Thoughts from Chaplain Richie Charles

An ancient wise proverb once said, “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”

The proverb pictures a kind of dilemma that a farmer would find himself in. The farmer knows that if he owns oxen, then he can benefit from the great strength that oxen bring and could plow a wider field. But having oxen means his manger will sometimes get messy.  On the other hand, the farmer could choose not to own any oxen, leaving his manger nice, tidy, and predictably clean.  But then, he wouldn’t have the benefit of collaborating with the ox’s strength and wouldn’t be able to plow as wide of a field. 

In our modern context, I think we can safely agree that most of us are not debating on if we should have oxen to help plow a wider field, but we can all agree that to make a wider, more far-reaching impact, like the farmer, we need the help that comes from working and collaborating with others.

Someone once made an acronym of the word “team”: Together Everyone Achieves More.

But teams always carry the potential for both progress, and problems. For harmony and disagreements. Realistically, all human relationships carry the possibility of friction. 

But this proverb seeks to encourage us to never give up on the power of a good team, because what you can accomplish when meaningfully collaborating with others will always be greater than what you can do on your own. The lone ranger approach may seem tempting, but it’s never as fulfilling as working with the right team who can complement your abilities to bring about greater, more far-reaching results. 

When you collaborate with dedicated people on a team, you’ll go further, make a wider impact, and achieve more for our veterans.

One Team, One Ohana!

Adam M. Robinson, Jr., MD, MBA, CPE
Director, VA Pacific Islands Health Care System
VADM, MC, USN, (RET)
36th Surgeon General, USN

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