VA Boston Healthcare System

Doctors often stop a patient’s heart during a major cardiac surgery. In this situation, a perfusionist operates a heart-lung bypass machine. The machine supplies needed blood and oxygen to the patient, whose heart is on hiatus.

However, the Moderna vaccine was found to offer an increased level of protection, including a 21% lower risk of documented infection and 41% lower risk of hospitalization, according to the research team, whose findings were published on December 1, 2021, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In this week’s edition of Chats with the Chief, VHA Chief of Staff Jon Jensen sits down with Dr. Ann McKee, who studies the long-term effects of hits to the head on the brain.

This scanning method could become a simple, completely non-invasive method of early Alzheimer’s detection, according to the researchers, and also has potential as a way to assess the effectiveness of treatment.

Dr. Juan P. Casas, a physician epidemiologist at the VA Boston Healthcare System, led the study. The research included collaborators from the University of Cambridge and the European Bioinformatics Institute in England, and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Italy.

Dr. Bertrand Huber, an Army Veteran, is the director of the PTSD Brain Bank at the VA Boston Healthcare System. His research focuses on the relationship between traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases, with a primary interest in how the brain clears damaged proteins after injury.

A large study that included data on more than 150,000 Veterans finds that risk of coronary artery disease—a form of heart disease—rises based on the rate of fried food consumption.

TRACTS, based at the VA Boston Healthcare System, is carrying out one of the most comprehensive VA studies on blast injuries on post-9-11 Veterans.

Women Veterans are more likely than civilians to experience intimate partner violence (IPV). Dr. Katherine Iverson of VA Boston Healthcare System studies the connection between IPV and TBI.

Every other Friday, residents of the spinal cord injury unit at VA Boston Healthcare System plan, shop for, prepare and share healthy and wholesome community meals.

TIME magazine has named Dr. Ann McKee, chief of neuropathology of the VA Boston Healthcare System, to its 2018 TIME 100, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.