Welcome to Standing Ready.

Welcome to Standing Ready Episode 2: Provenance: The Origins of the Veterans Health Administration.

Dr. Michael Gambone joins VHA historian Katie Delacenserie and producer Shawn Spitler. Gambone is professor of history at Kutztown University and author of “The Greatest Generation Comes Home: The Veteran in American Society.” We also welcome VA Chief Historian Michael Visconage.

Together, they discuss the origins of VHA’s forerunner, the Department of Medicine and Surgery, 75 years ago.

We explore how General Omar Bradley remade Veterans health care at the end of World War II. Also, the challenges he and Chief Medical Director Paul Hawley faced in providing health care to 16 million returning Veterans.

Listen along as we examine the origin story of how the largest integrated health care system in the country came to be.

Join us

Join Delacenserie and Spitler for this episode and past episodes of Standing Ready, a podcast where we elevate and highlight the significant contributions of the nation’s largest healthcare system through a historical lens by conducting interviews with VHA innovators and pioneers.

Episode 2:


Katie Delacenserie is the historian for the Veterans Health Administration.

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