Tools for your practice: Enhancing Consultations with Veterans
DVA clients are current and ex-service personnel with a variety of service and operations experience. They include people from a range of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. All have non-service-related identities and belong to an array of subgroups in the wider community.
How can you approach each consultation with veterans and their families to optimise their care?
Using the VETERANS Lens (mnemonic) to structure your thoughts when consulting a veteran or DVA client will assist you to unpack their full history, including their Australian Defence Force (ADF) experiences, support networks and medical concerns. The VETERANS Lens will guide you through the important, not-to-be-missed aspects of a medical history that are of particular relevance to a veteran’s health.
The VETERANS Lens
V = Values and culture
E = Exposures: Ears, eyes and other occupational exposures
T = Transition
E = Emotional history: Mental health, wellbeing and connectedness
R = Review of usual medical care including sexual health
A = Alcohol and substance use
N = Navigating the system
S = Supports: Social and Resources
Related courses
Understanding Our Veterans' Healthcare: This webinar will demonstrate how to incorporate the VETERANS Lens into your consultations and understanding of the transition from ADF to civilian life for your veteran patients and their families.
Further webinars and resources will expand on the VETERANS Lens and provide you with guidance for optimising the care of your veteran patients
Catherine is a GP in Geelong, Victoria. She has been involved in a wide variety of Medical Education opportunities, these include GP training, lecturing in Medicine at Deakin University, and providing clinical consultancy for the Deakin Indigenous Health team. Over recent years Catherine has moved into planning and facilitating the professional development of Medical Educators and GP Supervisors as well as learning (like everyone else) to do all of this online. Catherine strives to ensure her education events are engaging and innovative, with a dose of appropriate fun.
Dr Catherine Eltringham
This article equips GPs with practical strategies to recognise and assess suicide risk in Australian veterans. It outlines tools to support your consultation and assessment, and highlights referral pathways such as Open Arms – Veterans and Families Counselling and DVA services to support early intervention and save lives in general practice.
Dr Catherine Eltringham
Almost 90% of veterans report suffering from pain on transitioning out of military service and service-related injuries are often implicated. Open Arms and DVA have developed resources to support them and guide your care. Management includes education, non-medical interventions, allied health support, and selective medical treatments. Addressing mental health is crucial.
Dr Catherine Eltringham
As veterans transition from military service, they often face significant mental health challenges, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and adjustment difficulties. Managing these complex conditions requires a holistic, long-term approach, and general practitioners (GPs) are in a unique position to support veterans not only through referrals to mental health specialists but also through evidence-based lifestyle interventions that promote resilience and recovery.