ATHENS, Ohio - In a large lecture hall on the campus of Ohio University, West Virginia National Guard Col. Todd Fredricks greeted students with a smile as they entered the room.
As each each chair filled Nov. 2, college students discussed their days and awaited the start of the film they came to see - "The Veterans' Project."
This documentary was produced and directed by Fredricks with the help of Brian Plow. The two are faculty members at colleges within the Ohio University system, the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Scripps College of Communication.
The viewing was part of a pre-release series of showings to medical students to garner feedback on the film and provide a talk back session for students.
Fredericks serves part time in Medical Detachment of the West Virginia National Guard as a flight surgeon. When he's not in uniform, he teaches medical students at Ohio University and is working to change the practice of medicine through filmmaking and storytelling.
"The Veterans' Project" is a roughly 90-minute documentary featuring physicians, Veteran's Administration employees and military veterans, including some from the WVNG. Through its creation, Fredricks and Plow hope to bridge the gap between current physician practices and the needs of veteran populations of all ages. Their first stop is with college students studying medicine.
"Our hope is that we can develop dialogue about how to best start caring for veterans and their issues in the public, non-VA realms of medicine as well as create a viable cross-cultural platform that could be validated for continuing medical education credits," explained Fredricks.
For the third screening of the documentary, more than 100 students gathered to see first-hand the difficulties faced by combat veterans and the necessity of caring and compassionate medicine.
Frederick noted that his inspiration for the film came about from research produced by Fredricks concerning the lack of knowledge and understanding among civilian doctors surrounding the physical and emotional trauma of combat and what issues to look out for in patients.
"There are roughly 19 million veterans still living in this country and these future medical practitioners are going to encounter veterans in their practices and they need to be prepared to address some of their basic needs," he said.
Stories of service dating back to Vietnam to the more current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were told through those who know them best – veterans of those conflicts. Through vivid recollections underpinned with harrowing footage from combat, each person recounted their deployment, injury, recovery, transition and struggles along the way. Topics including traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress, combat medicine, and Veterans Affairs medical care were weaved throughout the storytelling of the main characters.
Helping the viewer to more deeply understand veteran issues in the film were three other WVNG Soldiers – 1st Lt. Nicole McClure, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Robert McClure and Sgt. 1st Class Brian Wood.
When asked why he chose to work with Soldiers from the West Virginia National Guard, Fredricks noted a story in particular about McClure, a female combat medic who was injured in the line of duty in Afghanistan.
"[Around] nine percent of the armed forces are women and most people don't ever ask women if they've had a military service career," he said. "Some of them have been wounded or injured and they don't look like what your picture of a Soldier would be, but they are still service members and they still have military-connected service issues. If a practitioner doesn't think to ask every patient, including women, ‘have you served in the military?' they may miss some people who really need their help and advocacy. So I want to change that thought process of all these students."
"Future medical practitioners are young by in large and have no idea how to interact with veterans and understand what veterans have seen, been exposed to, and how they are coping with their various medical problems," said Wood who serves as a non-commissioned officer in charge (NCOIC) flight medic with Charlie Company, 2-104th General Support Aviation Battalion. "It is my hope that this documentary will better help them understand how to approach veterans when they seek medical care."
By utilizing a systematic and calculated interview process to produce the film, Fredricks and Plow were able to collect viable research data for a qualitative research project. The project would be designed to document and analyze service personnel experiences with combat and health care while also developing content for their documentary.
Fredricks hopes that by encouraging up and coming medical professionals to ask three basic questions, it will help spark a conversation as well as gather more data on how and why veterans are choosing to seek out healthcare, from either civilian or VA practitioners.
"By doing that, we can start answering questions about why veterans do or don't register with the VA and we can prime every healthcare professional with the idea of asking these questions to get into the databases so that data analytics people can go in and start looking at those [responses], he noted.
At the end of the film during a talk back sessions with students, Fredricks explained his three questions approach to better care for veterans.
"I want to change behaviors so that three questions are asked of all patients that a student sees in clinical encounters. Question one is have you ever served in the armed forces of the United States of America? That way we can capture the U.S. Coast Guard and not just DoD personnel. Question two - As a result of your service, have you ever been wounded, injured, or become ill and if so, how? And the third question is, if you answered yes to the second question, have you ever registered with the Veteran's Affairs (VA)? And if so, great. If not, why not?"
While many students stayed late into the evening to ask follow up questions after the film, Fredricks underlined that he hopes students take away that veterans are usually very compliant, fun people who have really impressive life experiences and that they're a good population to work with.
"Typically, they're goal oriented, they want to do the right thing and they need a lot of help because they're usually stoic and don't necessarily want to open up to just anybody," he noted. "They need to trust people before they start divulging their innermost secrets. So a student or practitioner that gives those questions thought and approaches a veteran in a sincere way, I think we'll open up that dialogue and allow them to start talking about stuff. "
Fredricks underscored that the openness and conversation started from asking the three questions, "may have a powerful impact on a veteran that might not otherwise get care."
Through the work on this project, Fredricks and Plow are discussing expanding their reach in the documentary realm by producing other products on military medicine that may further bridge the gap between civilian medical providers and veterans.
Fredricks and Plow will take the film on the road going forward, entering it into various film festivals and presenting their findings at conferences across the country. The film is slated to be released next year and a trailer is available online at www.mediainmedicine.com.