VA psychologist seeks to raise awareness through outreach and programming
It might be as simple as providing a women-only waiting room at a Veterans Affairs medical center, or as profound as bearing witness to accounts of military sexual trauma. In all cases, Risa Goldstein stresses, the goal is the same: Encouraging women veterans to seek the medical treatment to which their service entitles them.
It’s not always an easy sell, the Rutgers graduate acknowledges.
For many reasons, women are more hesitant than their male counterparts to seek out programs offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs, says Goldstein, who received her bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1985 from Rutgers before pursuing a master’s degree at Fairleigh Dickinson University and a doctorate at Yeshiva University.
She spends much of her professional day crafting and implementing programs designed to overcome that reluctance.
As women veteran and returning veteran program manager, Goldstein oversees programming at five VA facilities in a region encompassing New York and New Jersey. Any veteran who has served in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraq Freedom or Operation New Dawn, and any woman veteran fall under Goldstein’s jurisdiction.
“Women are not accessing health care at the rate we’d hoped for; they’re not taking care of their health as well as the male vets.” Goldstein says.
One cause of the discrepancy, she believes, is that returning women veterans make a priority of tending to their family’s wellbeing before tending to their own. Moreover, women often don’t identify themselves as veterans as readily as men do, especially if they have not served in a war zone.
The VA is trying to raise awareness among women vets, now the fastest growing segment of eligible VA health care users, representing about 15 percent of active duty military, 20 percent of new recruits, and 17 percent of reserve and National Guard Forces.
“We’re trying to let women vets know we’re here and also that we have treatment for them that’s appealing and accessible, and that they would feel comfortable receiving,” Goldstein says.
Goldstein says the VA has established outreach programs, both on a regional and a national level, designed to overcome the gender gap. It has also developed a new model for outpatient care, termed “patient-aligned care teams,” and each facility hosts one of these teams.
In this model, a woman is assigned a care coordinator whose job is to ensure a smooth transition through the medical system. In addition to face-to-face appointments, women can receive virtual care through secure e-mail and telephone visits.
The VA’s goal is to offer comprehensive women’s health serves in one setting by one provider, Goldstein says.
A 10-bed residential unit for women at the Lyons campus of the VA New Jersey Health Care System, where Goldstein is based, features trauma specialists and other therapists specifically trained to address women veterans’ issues.
Although male and female veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan share common experiences – enduring multiple deployments, witnessing high levels of violence, watching buddies die – women sometimes bear the additional horror of dealing with sexual abuse or rape, Goldstein notes.
“Women come to our women-only programs from around the country because many of them have already experienced childhood trauma, and then they have to deal with military sexual trauma on top of that,” the clinical psychologist says. “They are looking for a safe place to work through a very complicated trauma history.”
The work she’s chosen is challenging, Goldstein acknowledges, but ultimately deeply satisfying.
“In addition to matching my career leanings and my interests, it’s wonderful to know that what I’m doing is meaningful,” she says. “From the time I sat in my first group therapy with a bunch of combat vets when I came to the VA as an intern in 1992, treating and helping vets heal and embrace a life back home after their service has been incredibly rewarding.”
The Somerset native says she is also encouraged that the VA – not to mention the country as a whole – has matured in its approach to the men and women who serve.