The Rutgers College of Nursing is planning to open a campus clinic to serve the mental health needs of the growing number of military veterans attending the university.
The facility would be called the Center for Veterans Health and Wellness, or CVHW. The project is still in its early phases – nursing college professors are currently setting up meetings with veterans to discuss the plan and what services should be provided. College of Nursing Dean Bill Holzemer has provided several offices and exam rooms within the college as potential space for the project.
“I just feel we have this enormous responsibility to make sure veterans have the support they need to achieve the very best educational outcomes,” said Marlene Rankin, a clinical professor at the college. “They really sacrificed for us.”
Rankin and fellow faculty member Candice Knight are heading up the project. Both are clinical professors and advanced practice nurses with extensive backgrounds in psychiatric nursing.
Rankin worked with veterans in the 1980s, both at a Veterans Administration hospital in Pittsburgh as well as a Naval station in Philadelphia, when the condition of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, was just begining to be identified and made the subject of mainstream practice.
“Fast forward to today, and patients are not dying in the numbers they did in previous wars,” Rankin said. “But we are seeing a horrifying amount of psychological stress, trauma, and brain injuries.”
Knight, who has specialized in treating trauma victims, said the center would fill a need on campus by providing medication management for those veterans taking prescription anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medications – both frequently used for PTSD. She said the center would also provide psychotherapy, educational programs for veterans and their families, and guest speakers.
“Advanced practice nurses can provide psychotherapy as well as medication management,” said Knight, who is specialty director of the college’s Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program. “Marlene and I both have private practices. We know the issues the veterans are facing and we felt we should be doing something for them.”
Stephen C. Abel, the university’s director for veteran’s services, said the number of veterans on campus is increasing due to the new federal GI bill that provides enhanced higher education benefits.
An exact head count is difficult because admissions applications have until recently asked prospective students only whether they planned to use veterans’ benefits. A total of 669 students answered affirmatively to the question for the fall 2010 – a 45 percent increase since 2008 - but Abel said several dozen of those are relatives of veterans. And, he said, it doesn’t include veterans who are not using the benefits.
All told, he said, the number is probably closer to 1,000, with many more expected in the coming years.
“Every service that Rutgers could provide is helpful,” he said.
Currently, veterans can receive counseling from the university’s Counseling, Alcohol and Other Drug Assistance Program & Psychiatric Services, or CAPS. Abel said the proposed clinic’s ability to provide medication or symptom managment would be helpful. He stressed that not every veteran who has PTSD needs medication, but, he said, some do.
He noted that one veteran experiences anxiety when riding the campus buses. He told Abel that he was in a bus accident in Afghanstian, but Abel said it might have been an improvised explosive device.
In addition to helping veterans, the clinic would also serve as a learning center for nursing students, and a potentially rich source for clinical research.
“Our vision is that our graduate students will work in this clinic and work with clients as we supervise them,” Knight said.
Rankin said the training is particularly crucial because advanced practice nurses are expected to play a larger role in providing treatment, especially under the healthcare reform program.
“We have all these veterans coming back - who is going to take care of them?” Rankin said. “It’s the nurses. They’re the main providers in the community.”