VA Medical Center hosting a Woman Veterans Healthcare conference

IRON MOUNTAIN — The Iron Mountain VA Medical Center is hosting a Woman Veterans Healthcare Training Conference at Bay College.

70 participants from all over the region came to get training not only for women’s health, but for women veterans.

After 9/11 more and more females started entering in the military.

The VA Medical Center serves thirteen hundred female veterans.

“The female population is the fastest growing sub population in the United States in the military. They comprise about 7–10% of all VA users right now, that number is growing rapidly. We’ve done a lot of work to train and educate our providers and our nurses to make sure they know how to properly treat our veterans and give them the care that they deserve,” said Barbara Robinson, Women Veteran Program Manager at the Oscar G Johnson VA Medical Center.

Female veterans have a lot of gender specific needs and there are some things that are more unique, that Nurses see more often in female Veterans.

“When you look at females in the military, they’re carrying these really heavy backpacks maybe up to 10 pounds at a time. Women distribute their weight differently than men. When a woman is carrying a backpack they’re going to distribute that weight in their pelvic region. We need to have our providers know how to look for these things,” Robinson added.

The Nurses from all over the region are excited to gather new information and get some tools to take back to the female veterans.

“The other nurses have brought up great ideas that I can take back to my VA. The training I’m getting has been very good,” said Brenda Blomgren, RN Case Manager

“It’s just a good refresher to hear the latest like in some of the new meds out,” said Lisa Tank, LPN.

Today was the first day the training conference and will be going until the end of the week.