[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5742]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 RESERVE COMPONENT HEALTH CARE PROGRAMS

  Mr. BURRIS. Madam President, it is with pride that I bring to the 
attention of my colleagues a recent series of programs conducted in 
Downing Grove, IL, relating to medical care for our servicemembers. The 
programs were sponsored by the Dupage Medical Group and the Defense 
Education Forum of the Reserve Officers Association of the United 
States, ROA. They were part of an ongoing series of six programs held 
over the past 2 years by these entities and related to the Reserve 
Components and military medicine.
  In November of last year, the topic was Mental Health Care Programs 
for the Reserve Components and their Families. As we all know, the 
signature injuries of the current overseas wars have been head injuries 
resulting in some degree of traumatic brain injury, TBI, and post 
traumatic stress syndrome, PTSD. Treatment for our wounded warriors 
with these injuries is paramount and has been correctly made a priority 
by the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Veterans Affairs. The most 
recent of the programs was on the lessons in military medicine from 
Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, which was 
conducted on April 9, 2010. It had a distinguished faculty and featured 
Dr. Paul DeFina, chairman of the International Brain Research 
Institute, who discussed brain trauma and its latest treatments.
  I am especially proud of the efforts of several of my constituents, 
notably, COL Janet Kamer and the doctors of the DuPage Medical Group, 
in developing and hosting these programs together with the Defense 
Education Forum. Colonel Kamer is the command consultant for psychology 
to Air Force Reserve Headquarters and a psychologist with the DuPage 
Medical Group. She is also the president of the Illinois Department of 
the Reserve Officers Association.
  MG Robert Kasulke also deserves recognition for his efforts in 
cohosting these programs. He is commander of the Army Reserve Medical 
Command and a vascular surgeon in his civilian career. RADM Paul Kayye 
(Retired), the national president of ROA, has also played a part in 
these medical care programs by introducing the April 9, 2010, program. 
Other faculty for these programs that deserve recognition includes: BG 
Margaret Wilmoth, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for 
Health Affairs; COL Nicole Keesee, deputy surgeon in the Office of the 
Chief of the Army Reserve; Sergio Estrada, assistant director of the 
Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs; Adermi Olodun, of the DOD 
Employer Partnership Program; and Bob Feidler, the director of the 
Defense Education Forum. Participants of the meetings included medical 
providers, local representatives of the Department of Veterans Affairs, 
other caregivers, medical and legal, and several of our wounded 
warriors.
  It is through people such as Dr. Kamer, the DuPage Medical Group and 
the Defense Education Forum of ROA, and the distinguished faculty of 
these programs that the most up-to-date information is being provided 
to the medical community, Reservists and their families about the 
various programs and treatments available to them. I congratulate them 
on their ongoing efforts.

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