October 18, 2011
Help to heal: Expert in war zone-related traumatic stress to lecture Oct. 27
Submitted by Communications and Marketing
Victoria E. Bruner, a clinical director at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, specializes in war zone-related traumatic stress. She will lecture about what we need to know and why it matters at the third annual Kansas State University Institute for the Health and Security of Military Families, Thursday, Oct. 27.
The lecture, "Communities + Service Members and Their Families = Strong Societies," will be from 3:30-5 p.m. at the K-State Alumni Center ballroom. Bruner will review the trends in treatment, philosophy and the importance of communities in healing war-related exposures.
A panel discussion with combat service members and other providers will follow.
Being a war widow led Bruner in her professional mission to reduce the cost of war to service members and their families.
She was a first responder at the Pentagon on 9/11 and then joined Operation Solace to treat military and civilians in the Washington, D.C., National Military Region. Later, she coordinated a study, "Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Victims of Mass Violence," and was study therapist in U.S. Department of Defense/Veterans Administration major research study, "Women in the Military with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder."
Bruner then developed a three-week intensive outpatient specialized care program for combat related stress, serving as the trauma specialist, interim clinical director and director of clinical education and training. Bruner is working on an initiative to review and support other post-traumatic stress disorder treatment programs throughout the Department of Defense.
Before joining the Department of Defense, Bruner was a private practitioner and consultant for UNICEF, the Federal Emergency Management Administration and the International Chiefs of Police. She was assistant adjunct professor at the University of Iowa Graduate School of Social Work and the department of behavioral medicine and public health studies at Des Moines University's Osteopathic Medical School.
The lecture is part of the College of Human Ecology's Celebration of Excellence. For more information, contact Briana Nelson Goff, director of the institute, at bnelson@k-state.edu.