FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 27, 2011
Contact: Robyn Truslow
Combat veterans and their families are at high risk for mental health problems. The numbers of servicemen and servicewomen diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has risen significantly over the past decade. While the military once held an unofficial “don’t ask don’t tell” policy about mental health, now, not only is there conversation but the word “epidemic” is used and every family member is impacted. Visit Calvert Library Prince Frederick on Tuesday, October 11 at 7pm for an engaging presentation on the “Psychological Effects of Combat: Battlefront to Homefront.” Speakers will include internationally-recognized expert, Dr. Elspeth Ritchie and passionate advocate, Nicole Johnson Starr.
Colonel (Ret) Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, MPH, recently retired from the Army after serving the last five years of her career as Director of the Proponency of Behavioral Health Director at the Office of the US Army Surgeon General. Currently, Dr. Ritchie is the Chief Clinical Officer, Department of Mental Health, for the District of Columbia. She trained at Harvard, George Washington, Walter Reed, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and has completed fellowships in both forensic and preventive and disaster psychiatry. She is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Her assignments and other missions have taken her to Korea, Somalia, Iraq, and Cuba. She has over 130 publications, mainly in the areas of forensic, disaster, suicide, ethics, military combat and operational psychiatry, and women’s health issues. Major publications include “The Mental Health Response to the 9/11 Attack on the Pentagon,” “Mental Health Interventions for Mass Violence and Disaster” and “Humanitarian Assistance and Health Diplomacy: Military-Civilian Partnership in the 2004 Tsunami Aftermath.” She is currently the senior editor on a forthcoming Military Medicine text on Combat and Operational Behavioral Health, the Textbook of Forensic Military Mental Health, and the Therapeutic Use of Canines in Army Medicine.
Nicole Johnson Starr grew up in a military family overseas, spending most of her childhood outside the United States, in Germany. After leaving home at 17, she joined the United States Air Force, immediately going overseas after training to serve with the 353rd Special Operations Group. Many years later, she joined the United States Army National Guard and has been serving with them since. Throughout her life, she has witnessed trauma in the form of death, rape, and abuse; but it wasn’t until she went to Afghanistan with the 300th Battalion, in 2008, that she learned about PTSD. Since then, she has made it her life purpose to reach out to others, teaching about PTSD, how it affects the individual and family members. She is currently attending school with the intent to gain her Psy.D., and concurrently working to build a PTSD retreat for soldiers, firefighters and police, as well as their families.
For more information about this informative evening, contact Robyn Truslow at 410-535-0291 or 301-855-1862.
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Robyn Truslow
Public Relations Coordinator
Calvert Library
850 Costley Way
Prince Frederick, MD 20678
phone: 410-535-0291 or 301-855-1862
fax: 410-535-3022
rtruslow@somd.lib.md.us
