Approximately 4 million U.S. service members took part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after troops started returning from their deployments, some active-duty service members and veterans began experiencing mental health problems. Given the stressors associated with war, it is not surprising that some service members developed such mental health conditions as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance use disorder. Subsequent epidemiologic studies conducted on military and veteran populations that served in the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq provided scientific evidence that those who fought were in fact being diagnosed with mental illnesses and experiencing mental healthâ€"related outcomesâ€"in particular, suicideâ€"at a higher rate than the general population. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the quality, capacity, and access to mental health care services for veterans who served in the Armed Forces in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn. It includes an analysis of not only the quality and capacity of mental health care services within the Department of Veterans Affairs, but also barriers faced by patients in utilizing those services.

U.S. military conflicts abroad have left nine million Americans dependent on the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) for medical care. Their "wounds of war" are treated by the largest hospital system in the country—one that has come under fire from critics in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in the nation's media. In Wounds of War, Suzanne Gordon draws on five years of observational research to describe how the VHA does a better job than private sector institutions offering primary and geriatric care, mental health and home care services, and support for patients nearing the end of life. In the unusual culture of solidarity between patients and providers that the VHA has fostered, Gordon finds a working model for higher-quality health care and a much-needed alternative to the practice of for-profit medicine.

Phillip Longman tells the amazing story of the turnaround of the Department of Veterans Affairs health-care system from a dysfunctional, scandal-prone bureaucracy into the benchmark for high-quality medicine in the United States. Best Care Anywhere shows that vast swaths of what we think we know about health, health care, and medical economics are just plain wrong. And the book demonstrates how this extraordinarily cost-effective model, which has proven to be highly popular with veterans, can be made available to everyone. New to this edition is an analysis of how the shortcomings of both so-called Obamacare and Republican plans to privatize Medicare reinforce the need for applying the lessons of the VA. Also included are completely updated statistics and research, as well as examples of how the private sector is already beginning to learn from the VA's example.

In this third edition of Intracranial Stereotactic Radiosurgery, Drs. Sheehan and Lunsford provide an updated assessment of the practice of stereotactic radiosurgery. Topics include benign and malignant tumors, cerebrovascular abnormalities, and functional disorders. Several new topics are now included and focus on immunotherapy, hypofractionation, and repeat radiosurgery. Each chapter contains key figures and tables to illustrate the critical concepts of the work. Contributors to the book represent many of the most prestigious stereotactic radiosurgery centers across the world. This book is comprised of 36 chapters and represents a comprehensive update to prior editions. It is intended to be a readable, credible, and accessible reference on stereotactic radiosurgery. Editors Jason Sheehan, MD, PhD, FACS, FAANS, is the Vice Chair and Harrison Distinguished Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of Virginia (UVA). He also serves as the Neurosciences Service Line Director at UVA. Dr. Sheehan is the current chair of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) Section on Tumors. He serves as the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Neuro-Oncology. L. Dade Lunsford, MD, serves as the Lars Leksell Professor and Distinguished Professor at the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also director of the Center for Image-Guided Neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and an internationally recognized authority on stereotactic surgery, radiosurgery, and minimally invasive surgery. He has authored or coauthored more than 1,000 scientific reports and 16 books.

The health and economic costs of tobacco use in military and veteran populations are high. In 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) make recommendations on how to reduce tobacco initiation and encourage cessation in both military and veteran populations. In its 2009 report, Combating Tobacco in Military and Veteran Populations, the authoring committee concludes that to prevent tobacco initiation and encourage cessation, both DoD and VA should implement comprehensive tobacco-control programs.