The Lack of benefits available to soldiers returning from the Middle Term Paper

The Lack of benefits available to soldiers returning from the Middle East with mental and physically disorders - Term Paper Example It has been projected by some that close to fifty percent of current Middle East conflict veterans will seek medical treatment from the Veterans Administration. More than sixty percent of these injured veterans will seek short-term treatment, defined as medical care that lasts less than five years, but the other approximately forty percent of them will remain in the Veteran's Administration health care system for the rest of their lives (Patsner, n.p.). Unfortunately for these brave men and women, the resources available to treat injured and disabled veterans are currently severely lacking in quality. There are many reasons for the current situation. Among them are the sheer number of injured veterans returning from these conflicts and the cost of treating them, the type of injuries that are returning home, the number of veterans already in the system that also require care, the inadequacy of the existing system to handle patient transfers when a veteran moves from one part of the sy stem to another, and the lack of preparedness by primary care physicians outside the Veterans' Administration system to deal with war-related injuries. Many Americans are aware of the extremely high costs of the Middle East conflicts, as these operations have resulted in a continuous presence of American military members in that theater since the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attack. As of the end of the 2010 fiscal year, the United States federal government had spent seven hundred and fifty-one billion dollars in Iraq and three hundred thirty-six billion dollars in Afghanistan (Belasco, p. 1). However, many people are not aware of the costs incurred after the injured veterans of these conflicts return home. One projection states that the costs of life-long medical care, disability benefits, and social security and pension benefits for veterans of the current Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts could eventually total over seven hundred billion dollars, which is more than the over all cost for the first five years of the conflict (Patsner, n.p.). Additionally, up to forty-five percent of Gulf War veterans may apply for long-term disability benefits. Over eighty-eight percent of those applying will be at least partially eligible to receive some form of disability payments. These disability claims could potentially add another three hundred fifty-five billion dollars to the total cost of health care for injured veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts (Patsner, n.p.) The Department of Defense and the Veterans' Administration have been ill-prepared to deal with the flood of injured service members and veterans returning from these conflicts. In 2001, before the current Middle East operations had begun, the number of backlogged Veteran's Administration cases was near one hundred thousand. As of April 2008, the number of unprocessed cases had jumped to over six hundred thousand. This means that not only are the currently returning veterans not being treated efficiently, resources are being re-directed from older veterans and reducing their access to care as well (Kenneth & Burris, 2330-39). This backlog of untreated cases, as well as the complexity of the application process for use of the Veterans' Administration medical resources, can lead to more issues of aggravated injuries for those veterans that are not adequately and quickly treated for their injuries. Due to the lack of screening as veterans separate from active

Routine CT scanning protocols of head, chest and abdomen Essay

Routine CT scanning protocols of head, chest and abdomen - Essay Example As with the benefits of any new medical technology, CT also has its share of woes in terms of exposure of patients to high dose radiation. It is challenging to optimise and reduce the dose without compromising the image quality and resolution. This paper aims at bringing out optimization of the radiation dosage by modifying existing parameters based on latest discoveries and innovations. The most direct method of reducing the radiation dose reduction is that of decreasing the tube voltage and tube potential. However, the use of other techniques including Automatic Emission Control, Imaging Filters and Noise Reducing Filters also aid in reduction of radiation dosage without diminishing the image quality. The machines used for routine CT at KSMC are the General Electronics system, the Philips system and the Siemens Somatome Sensation 16 Slice. For this evaluation, I would focus on the Siemens system as my experience is confined to the same. The CT scanning protocols for head, chest and abdomen will be covered in this paper. CT can be performed with or without contrast and the procedure essentially depends on the physician performing the imaging procedure. Table 1 shows the numerous parameters and dimensions for the CT scan of the human skull using KSMC’s protocol. Skull imaginative view, reconnoitre vision of the brain SOM (supra orbito meatal) line are the baselines for this assessment. This protocol does not use IV contrast or oral contrast. The second protocol used is for mass lesion or tumour. The second protocol is similar to the first one but uses IV contrast that is set between 100cc to 120cc of Omnipaque 350. Patient preparation and training vary for protocols with and without contrast. In protocols using no contrast, patient training is not necessary, while procedures using contrast require that the four elementary steps be completed, the steps being; only one CT scan