VA Connecticut celebrates VA’s Health Professions Education Week

Training more than 118,000 future health professionals each year to provide health care to Veterans continues to remain VA’s academic mission.

Health professions trainees participate in over 7,000 wide-ranging training programs offered at 150 VA health care facilities, making VA the nation’s largest provider of health professions training. Health professions education in VA is conducted through long-standing partnerships with 1,400 U.S. academic institutions, including 96% of the nation’s medical schools.

“VA’s health professions education programs enhance the quality of and timely access to care provided to Veterans at VA Connecticut,” said Dr. Brett Rusch, Interim Medical Center Director. “We want to take the opportunity to recognize and thank our dedicated health professions trainees, educators, our academic affiliates and most of all, our Veterans who actively engage in VA’s training mission. Our trainees and students often tell us the greatest reward of training at VA is serving Veterans.”

Academic affiliations play a vital role in meeting Veteran health care needs at VA Connecticut whose major academic affiliates include Yale University, University of Connecticut and Fairfield University. VA Connecticut has over 200 academic affiliations with institutions across the country. VA Connecticut trains hundreds of resident and fellow physicians every year in a variety of disciplines, including internal medicine, psychiatry, surgery, neurology, and radiology.

Offering training in more than 60 clinical disciplines, VA also educates nurses, social workers, psychologists, physical and occupational therapists in the latest evidence-based medicine. Over 34,000 of VA’s HPTs come from Minority Serving Institutions, such as Hispanic Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. HPTs support VA’s ability to deliver and sustain high-quality patient care to Veterans.

“Our health professions trainees make invaluable contributions to our Veterans every day,” said Chief Academic Affiliations Officer Marjorie Bowman, MD, MPA.. “VA is fortunate to have more than 1,400 academic affiliates who share our theme: passion to learn, power to heal. The academic affiliation partnership model is vital to training future health professionals who care for our Veterans and the nation.”

VA Connecticut will celebrate HPE Week by holding daily events to celebrate our trainees and educators. We will be hosting an Educator Roundtable to discuss issues related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for our HPTs from 12-1pm on Wednesday March 15th.

Learn more about VA’s Health Professions Education Week and VA’s health professions training programs by visiting the OAA website or by watching this brief introductory video.

 

Pamela Redmond, Public Affairs

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