Association of a training psychotherapy, experience with deployment stress in military physicians.

This study examines whether an elective Training Psychotherapy Experience (TPE) confers any specific benefit for those who must engage in military operations. A questionnaire and an Impact of Event Scale--Revised (IES-R) were sent to military physicians who had graduated from the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) after 1980 and completed residencies in psychiatry, internal medicine, or a combination of the two. Those who participated in TPE and those who did not were compared in respect of demographics and whether they chose to remain in or leave the military after obligation. There was no difference in retention between the two groups. We suggest that this may be due to their medical education having taken place in a military-oriented environment. The IES-R scores confirm earlier findings that deployed medical personnel have fewer psychiatric sequellae than deployed combat troops (Kolkow, Grieger, Morse, & Spira, 2005).