Not Just for US Veterans: 7 Medical Breakthroughs the VA Gave to the World

When someone at the Department of Veterans Affairs messes up, it usually makes national news. When the VA is found to be either consistently more efficient than private health care or generally outperforming private hospitals, however, it generally turns fewer heads.

Many might ask why it's important to notice when the VA does what it's supposed to do. With the VA facing more than 83,000 job cuts this year, it's important to remind not only veterans, but also lawmakers, health officials and the American population at large just how much the country -- and the world -- benefits from the work of the department's doctors and researchers.

Here are a handful of medical breakthroughs the world received from work done by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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1. PTSD Treatments

Veterans might be more prone to post-traumatic stress disorder given the work they do, but PTSD isn't something with which only veterans struggle. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) first codified PTSD as a distinct mental health issue in 1980. By 1989, the VA established the National Center for PTSD.

The VA has been at the forefront of many proven PTSD treatment options, including Cognitive Processing Therapy since 2006. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) was first developed in 1987, but was in the VA system by 1990. Dr. Edna Foa developed Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy between 1987 and 1991, and the VA began using it in 2006. These three PTSD therapies are the current "gold standard" for treatment.

2. Nicotine Patches

While some iconic photos of U.S. troops smoking cigarettes have surfaced over the years, anyone who served knows the military and the VA are constantly imploring members to quit using tobacco. The VA's dedication to smoking cessation runs so deep, in fact, that when the VA created the transdermal nicotine patch in 1984, VA researchers tested it on themselves to prove it was safe.

3. Pacemakers

There are many conditions that might cause one's heart to beat abnormally, from birth defects and atrial fibrillation to, of course, any kind of hardening of the arteries. A pacemaker is an implantable device that uses electrical pulses to keep the heart from beating too slowly. It's a pretty simple concept, so simple that the idea of a pacemaker dates back to the 1880s. But it wasn't until 1960 that researchers at the Buffalo VA first implanted one into the heart of a 77-year-old man, prolonging his life for another decade. Their design became the first commercially produced pacemaker ever.

4. CT Scans/MRIs

Dr. William H. Oldendorf was a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the UCLA school of medicine who wrote the first paper on cross-sectional scanning of the brain with X-rays. He even received the first patent for a scanner based on his research, but found very little interest in the technology. His work, done with the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, laid the groundwork for nuclear imaging such as CT scans and MRIs.

5. Coronary Bypass Surgery

There's a reason the Houston VA Medical Center is named for Dr. Michael DeBakey. He was a World War II veteran, founding doctor of the VA and pioneering cardiovascular surgeon who first used Dacron grafts to repair blood vessels, helped develop the use of artificial hearts and pioneered angioplasty. More importantly, he was one of the earliest doctors to perform a coronary bypass, now the most common heart surgery in adults.

6. Liver Transplants

The "father of transplantation," Dr. Thomas E. Starzl, was a transplant surgeon and research scientist in the VA system for more than 50 years. He performed the first successful liver transplant on May 5, 1963. Others had attempted the operation before, but no patient had previously survived the procedure.

On top of performing the first liver transplant, Starzl was the first doctor to consistently perform kidney transplants that resulted in long-term survival due to his use of post-operative immunosuppressants and steroids. He would spend his career working on anti-rejection medications to increase transplantation survival rates.

7. Radioimmunoassay

Dr. Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, physicist and researcher at the Bronx VA Medical Center, received the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1977. Her work with fellow VA scientist Dr. Solomon "Sol" Berson created radioimmunoassay, a method of using radiolabeled molecules to measure tiny amounts of substances in the blood. It began as an attempt to treat adult-onset diabetes, but instead found a way to tag and measure hormones such as insulin. Immediately, the technique showed that Type 2 diabetics had more insulin instead of less in their blood, when at the time the medical community believed the opposite. It also became helpful in diagnosing hyperthyroidism and Hepatitis B.

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