Director's Message May 24, 2024

VA Pacific Islands Health Care System (VAPIHCS) clinics will be closed on Saturday, May 25, 2024, and on Monday, May 27, 2024, in observance of this solemn day of remembrance for our brothers and sisters in arms who never made it home. 

At VA Pacific Islands Health Care System (VAPIHCS), our primary focus is delivering safe, compassionate, and quality care to those who have worn the cloth of our nation. Yet even as we provide this care, many of us are acutely aware of the fact that some will never come to us for care, because they paid the ultimate price while working to defend our freedom and the American way of life. 

I served for 36 years in the United States Navy, and though my current mission is to improve and expand care for the Veterans of the Pacific Islands, I still remember those I cared for who laid down their lives in service of our country. 

Let us take time to reflect on those we have lost so that we may live in freedom and safety. Our gratitude is most widely acknowledged on Memorial Day, but it is something that I feel every day, because I know - as we who served all know - that freedom is not free. 

Koa Challenge

At VAPIHCS, we are proud to work with Veterans to help them recover from many different physical and mental challenges. One of the types of therapy we have great success with is Recreation Therapy, where we help Veterans to be active through recreation and sports. For some, it will be part of a comprehensive treatment approach to regain mobility after a stroke, a surgery, or a fall. For others, it may be part of a plan to overcome depression, aid in recovery from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), or help a Veteran to find a healthy outlet for competitiveness and aggression. There are so many ways that getting out and moving our bodies can improve our mental, physical, and even spiritual health. 

Last year, the Center for Development and Civic Engagement (CDCE), our Recreation Therapy program, and the AMVETS West Oahu Vet Center put together a wonderful event called the Koa Challenge, where Veterans were able to compete in activities such as horseshoes, archery, and pickle ball. It went so well that we have decided to make it an annual event. This year’s Koa challenge will be in the fall, but enrollment begins in June. 

Veterans not currently referred to the Recreation Therapy program can complete their Koa Challenge application and follow up with their PCP for a Recreation Therapy consult and medical clearance. They will need a referral to Recreation Therapy to compete. Make an appointment now by calling 1-800-214-1306. We’re excited to begin sign ups for the 2nd annual Koa challenge which will take place from November 12 through November 16, 2024.

Thoughts from Chaplain Jewel Davis

We use our hands to wave “hello,” to imply greetings through handshakes, to high five, and to fist bump. We use our hands to clap, applause, and snap to familiar beats; to give thumbs up and to raise peace signs; to motion come, stop, and whoa…time out.  We also use our hands to catch and to hold onto things, and to signal communications such as, “I’ll call you” or “1 minute.”

Our hands are instruments. They are tools and extensions of us, with remarkable ways of “speaking volumes,” although they technically do not speak. Yet, many of us talk with our hands. Our hands personalize our togetherness and our unity; they nurture care and hope, mending and healing, and they are tools that strengthen relationships through the conveyance of tacit solidarity.

Here in Hawaii, and increasingly throughout the world, hands are used to form the “shaka”, the legendary expression that bids us to slow down and savor those precious moments of empathy, sensitivity, and friendship in the “Aloha Spirit,” that way of life that extends mutually high regards from one person to another.

And as we care for Veterans and work with staff and other service providers, imagine the incalculable value of hands ready at a moment’s notice to offer support, or assistance, or the slightest gesture of camaraderie and goodwill.

There are so many ways in which we use our hands to communicate our thoughts and feelings, but nothing truly compares to the effect of a gentle, respectful, non-threatening touch of compassion. Its impact is priceless and its depth, immeasurable.

And so, as we go throughout today and ponder the question, “What’s in your hands?”  May our answer be quite simply, “It is the gift of their usage.”

One Team, One Ohana!
Adam M. Robinson, Jr., MD, MBA, CPE 
Director, VA Pacific Islands Health Care System
VADM, MC, USN, (RET)
36th Surgeon General, USN

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