Medical centers integrate surgery missions

  • Published
  • By Michael Dulevitz
  • Brooke Army Medical Center Public Affairs
SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) --  With the most recent base realignment and closure changes looming, Brooke Army Medical Center and Wilford Hall Medical Center here have begun integrating their vascular surgical missions.

Lt. Col. (Dr.) Todd Rasmussen, chief of the vascular surgery service at WHMC, stated that the combining of the Army and Air Force surgical services forms the largest academic and war-ready vascular surgery group in the city of San Antonio as well as the Department of Defense.

"The integration is in anticipation of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission mandated San Antonio Military Medical Center," Colonel Rasmussen said. He pointed out that until the SAMMC model comes to fruition and can consolidate into one location, robust outpatient clinics, in-patient care and training of students and residents will continue in both the north (BAMC) and south (WHMC) campuses.

The Military Vascular and Endovascular Surgery Service, as it is now called, offers a full-range of vascular disease care to include open and catheter-based treatment of carotid artery and lower extremity occlusive disease.

In addition to the full range of vascular surgery services offered, this group of surgeons provides a continuous deployment model with at least two surgeons deployed to theater hospitals at any one time in support of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The group, which has presented and written extensively on this important surgical experience, is nationally recognized for its wartime effort.

"The experience gained in the wartime scenario has a direct impact on how we can better treat our beneficiary population here at home," Colonel Rasmussen stated. "The team's ability to repair vascular damage in the trauma environment provides invaluable insight, training and treatment options for the patients seen in the non-trauma setting."