Article
Moral Injury: The Spirit’s Unseen Wound
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
On July 17, 2023, several media outlets covering military and federal news carried a story about the US Department of...
Article
Fireworks, Veterans, and PTSD: The Ironies of the Fourth of July
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
When I was a child, every Fourth of July holiday my father would take me to the military fireworks display at Fort Sam...
Article
Weaponizing Education: The Rise, Fall, and Return of the GI Bill
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
Nelson Mandela 1
Growing up I can remember my father telling stories of service...
Article
Doctors of Virtue and Vice: The Best and Worst of Federal Practice in 2023
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
Regular readers of Federal Practitioner may recall that I have had a tradition of dedicating the last column of the year to an ethics...
Article
The Long Arc of Justice for Veteran Benefits
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
This Veterans Day we honor the passing of the largest expansion of veterans benefits and services in history. On August 10, 2022, President Biden...
Article
Psychedelics and the Military: What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
Human subjects’ protections have exponentially improved since the days of the military’s secret LSD research, but the federal government must...
Article
In the Heat of Anger: The Impact of Increasing Temperatures on Veteran and Military Mental Health
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
As temperatures climb, we must redouble our efforts to educate patients about the dangers of extreme heat and advocate for federal policies and...
Article
Green Alerts: Balancing Suicide Risk and Privacy
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
Green Alerts deploy media and law enforcement to search for missing veterans believed to be vulnerable to harm, but the call to safeguard the...
Article
The Balance of Truth-Telling and Respect for Confidentiality: The Ethics of Case Reports
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
The CARE guidelines can help case report authors hone the art of anonymizing the protected health information of subjects while also accurately...
Article
A Simple Message
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
Find something to be grateful for: your loved ones, your companion animals, your friends; these are things even the pandemic cannot take away from...
Article
The Angel of Death in Clarksburg
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
Compassion and competence can help us to follow the good inclinations of our hearts that together with system changes can bar the doors of our...
Article
The Delta Factor
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
With the rapid emergence of the COVID-19 Delta variant the war has changed and so has the need to mandate vaccination for those on whose service...
Article
Affirming Pride
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
The VA decision to provide gender-confirmation surgery removes an ethical dilemma and allows health care providers to use the procedure to promote...
Article
Mistrust and Mandates: COVID-19 Vaccination in the Military
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
Part of the accountability we all bear for health care inequity and racism is to better understand vaccine hesitancy among military and veteran...
Article
An Anniversary Postponed and a Diagnosis Delayed: Vietnam and PTSD
- Author:
- Cynthia Geppert, MD, MA, MPH, MSBE
Postponement of the National Vietnam War Veterans Day should not diminish our recognition of their service and our focus on posttrauamtic stress...