What we do...

Our mission has several functional areas, as defined by the US Army (remember, I'm in the Air Force).

Primarily, I serve as consultant to the commander of this region. I'm a doc in the traditional sense (being attached to the medical component and being available for "patients") but we are also the de facto experts on the assessment, prevention and management of combat operational stress reactions (COSR). This is basically defined as the physical and emotional responses to acute or chronic stressors associated with war and living conditions associated with war.

The first part is assessment, prevention and education services, which is mostly walking around, talking to people, asking questions about morale, stressors, etc., We will also offer briefings and classes for different units-- smoking cessation, anger management...

The second part, which is more time consuming, is basic behavioral health services. In conjunction with the medics, we are the only game in town for management of depression, anxiety, chronic pain, insomnia, interpersonal problems, anger, etc. Basically we do everything we do back at home, just in a more informal environment.

The third part is traumatic event management. When something bad happens, we roll in two to three days later and, in small groups, debrief the people involved. Nothing complicated, just an opportunity to let those affected normalize their responses (maybe grief, anger, fear), get some brief peer support and guidance about how to move on. The Army has a specific way they want this done, and we've been trained up on those techniques.

So far the days are usually comprised of a few hours of walk-abouts on the FOB and three to four walk-ins to the clinic. It's light duty compared to back at home.

On the horizon are several trips to outlying FOBs-- to basically offer the same services in the form of a traveling road show.