The Military Health History: An Ongoing Educational Initiative to Improve Veteran Healthcare
Document Type
Event
Location
LSUHSC-NO Lions Building
Start Date
11-4-2025 3:30 PM
End Date
11-4-2025 5:00 PM
Description
Background: Due to the unique work of military personnel, veteran patients often have niche health concerns that may easily be overlooked by the average civilian physician or providers not otherwise educated on the importance of collecting occupational data during patient interviews. This can result in a healthcare disparity faced by veterans, initially described in 2012 by Dr. Jefrey Brown. In an attempt to address this disparity, “the military health history” was first introduced to third-year medical students at LSU Medical school in New Orleans in 2023. As a follow-up to this initial project, our team reintroduced “the military health history” to second-year students at the same medical school. Our objective was to determine the most impactful period in a medical school curriculum to introduce the art of taking a military history to rising physicians. With this comparative data, we are more fully equipped to determine the role that this educational intervention serves in supplying the veteran patient population with the most qualified, thorough, and capable physicians possible to ensure outstanding quality of care in the Veterans Healthcare system.
Methods: This follow-up study is rooted within an initial project approved as quality improvement by both Louisiana State University Health Science Center and Southeast Louisiana Veteran Healthcare System IRB offices. The IRB approval of this follow-up study as a standalone project is forthcoming. A brief presentation highlighting the components of the military health history was presented to a full class of 206 second-year medical students, before and after which they were asked to answer five survey questions . These were the same survey questions presented to the third-year students in our previously published study. These prompts evaluated the class’s perspective on the importance of collecting a military health history, their confidence in in doing so, and their likelihood of performing a military health history in their future practice. In order to determine useful retention of the lecture’s contents, and to determine fully the comparative effectiveness of presenting information to future physicians while they are still in their didactic period versus while they are in their clerkships, the same post-lecture survey will be readministered to this second-year medical school class six months from the initial lecture presentation. To observe differences in mean values of reported importance, confidence and likelihood of performing a military health history before and after the lecture, we conducted an unpaired t-test to compare the two data points of pre- and post- values, in contrast to the initial study in which repeated measured analyses of variance, ANOVA, was used to compare multiple (pre-, post-, and 6-months) data points. We intend to further conduct this same series of variance analysis with our data that will be collected in the upcoming 6-month follow-up survey.
Results: In the initial study population of third-year medical students, significant results of time were associated with values on importance, Wilks’ Lambda = 0.74, F (2, 87) = 15.41, P < 0.001; confidence, Wilks’ Lambda = 0.61, F (2, 87) = 27.58, P < 0.001; and likelihood of performing a military health history in their future patients, Wilks’ Lambda = 0.46, F (2, 88) = 50.58, P < 0.001. In the comparative study population of second-year medical students, the results of an unpaired t-test were as follows, with sample one representing the pre-lecture data and sample two representing the post-lecture data. All three results are found to be statistically significant.
Conclusions: For the initial study population comprised of third-year students, the brief traditional lecture-presentation highlighting the elements of taking a military health history showed a statistically significant rise in both the likelihood and confidence subsets over the 6-month reassessment period. In the follow-up study population of second-year students, there was a statistically significant rise in all three areas of questioning, with questions assessing the importance, likelihood and confidence subsets over the pre- and post-assessment periods. Once the six-month data is collected and compared to the initial study, we will include this additional data, with the hopes of obtaining similar statistically-significant results. This data is increasingly promising, suggesting the positive impact on retention of information presented and potential for continuance of performing a thorough military health history in clinical settings throughout these students’ medical careers. The data suggest this lecture series is extremely useful in improving a physician’s overall ability to appropriately care for a veteran patient.
Recommended Citation
Murphy, Jaclyn, "The Military Health History: An Ongoing Educational Initiative to Improve Veteran Healthcare" (2025). Medicine Research Day. 6.
https://digitalscholar.lsuhsc.edu/mrd/2025/qi/6
The Military Health History: An Ongoing Educational Initiative to Improve Veteran Healthcare
LSUHSC-NO Lions Building
Background: Due to the unique work of military personnel, veteran patients often have niche health concerns that may easily be overlooked by the average civilian physician or providers not otherwise educated on the importance of collecting occupational data during patient interviews. This can result in a healthcare disparity faced by veterans, initially described in 2012 by Dr. Jefrey Brown. In an attempt to address this disparity, “the military health history” was first introduced to third-year medical students at LSU Medical school in New Orleans in 2023. As a follow-up to this initial project, our team reintroduced “the military health history” to second-year students at the same medical school. Our objective was to determine the most impactful period in a medical school curriculum to introduce the art of taking a military history to rising physicians. With this comparative data, we are more fully equipped to determine the role that this educational intervention serves in supplying the veteran patient population with the most qualified, thorough, and capable physicians possible to ensure outstanding quality of care in the Veterans Healthcare system.
Methods: This follow-up study is rooted within an initial project approved as quality improvement by both Louisiana State University Health Science Center and Southeast Louisiana Veteran Healthcare System IRB offices. The IRB approval of this follow-up study as a standalone project is forthcoming. A brief presentation highlighting the components of the military health history was presented to a full class of 206 second-year medical students, before and after which they were asked to answer five survey questions . These were the same survey questions presented to the third-year students in our previously published study. These prompts evaluated the class’s perspective on the importance of collecting a military health history, their confidence in in doing so, and their likelihood of performing a military health history in their future practice. In order to determine useful retention of the lecture’s contents, and to determine fully the comparative effectiveness of presenting information to future physicians while they are still in their didactic period versus while they are in their clerkships, the same post-lecture survey will be readministered to this second-year medical school class six months from the initial lecture presentation. To observe differences in mean values of reported importance, confidence and likelihood of performing a military health history before and after the lecture, we conducted an unpaired t-test to compare the two data points of pre- and post- values, in contrast to the initial study in which repeated measured analyses of variance, ANOVA, was used to compare multiple (pre-, post-, and 6-months) data points. We intend to further conduct this same series of variance analysis with our data that will be collected in the upcoming 6-month follow-up survey.
Results: In the initial study population of third-year medical students, significant results of time were associated with values on importance, Wilks’ Lambda = 0.74, F (2, 87) = 15.41, P < 0.001; confidence, Wilks’ Lambda = 0.61, F (2, 87) = 27.58, P < 0.001; and likelihood of performing a military health history in their future patients, Wilks’ Lambda = 0.46, F (2, 88) = 50.58, P < 0.001. In the comparative study population of second-year medical students, the results of an unpaired t-test were as follows, with sample one representing the pre-lecture data and sample two representing the post-lecture data. All three results are found to be statistically significant.
Conclusions: For the initial study population comprised of third-year students, the brief traditional lecture-presentation highlighting the elements of taking a military health history showed a statistically significant rise in both the likelihood and confidence subsets over the 6-month reassessment period. In the follow-up study population of second-year students, there was a statistically significant rise in all three areas of questioning, with questions assessing the importance, likelihood and confidence subsets over the pre- and post-assessment periods. Once the six-month data is collected and compared to the initial study, we will include this additional data, with the hopes of obtaining similar statistically-significant results. This data is increasingly promising, suggesting the positive impact on retention of information presented and potential for continuance of performing a thorough military health history in clinical settings throughout these students’ medical careers. The data suggest this lecture series is extremely useful in improving a physician’s overall ability to appropriately care for a veteran patient.