A military doctor weighs in, anonymously, about why so many of our injured troops are discharged with so little support from the military:
I just want to say, on behalf of Army physicians, the Physical Evaluation Board (PEB) often has only ONE medical person on it (and sometimes, that one person is a nurse.)Note: I can't swear that this is a real military doctor, but I did some searching and believe that this is real. And in any case, this is an important enough scandal that I'm willing to post this and invite discussion from other military doctors, in order that we can ascertain the truth.
[NOTE FROM JOHN: The PEB determines who much disability income the injured troops receive from the military once they're discharged. Often, our troops get little to nothing because the military determines that they aren't disabled or have pre-existing conditions, even though it simply isn't true.]
So, these soldiers are evaluated by physicians who say that he/she can't do their duty, and they are referred to a group of non-physicians who make the determination of disability.
We, the doctors, are instructed to explain everything in our documentation in layman's terms...because otherwise, the board won't understand.
Even when we do that, the soldiers often get screwed because even layman's terms can't get the impact and implications of a soldier's condition across to a paperpusher.
