Unthinkable!!!
Plan Would Close Walter Reed!!!
This is a huge shock! Especially since it wasn't even on the main list published by the AP.
posted by Suerreal @ 1:21 PM
Friday, May 13, 2005
This is a huge shock! Especially since it wasn't even on the main list published by the AP.
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As posted to MBs:
There's a nasty rumor afoot that Walter Reed Army Medical Center is on the current hit list.
This is where I spent over 32 weeks of medical school rotations, a year of internship, 2 years of residency, and 2 years of fellowship.
This is home to the famed Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
I am really really shocked at this. Nothing else on the list going to the BRAC Commission surprises me all that much. But closing Walter Reed would have been completely unthinkable previously, and it is currently doing the lion's share of Afghanistan/Iraq-related trauma aftercare. Hopefully, that particular part of its mission will go away, but there will always be a next conflict.
Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the actual hospital building, will be closing its doors. The National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda will be expanded, and renamed the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology is dismantling - some functions going to Dover AFB (DNA repository for positive identification of remains), some to the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, some to other posts and bases. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research has already moved to another location just outside DC in Silver Spring MD.
With the medical center and AFIP going, and WRAIR gone, I can see no reason at all for maintaining any military function on the actual post now known as Walter Reed - several blocks of DC bordered by Georgia Avenue on the East, Fern and Alaska on the North & Northwest, 16th St. on the west, and Aspen St. on the South. There's really nothing else there.
I think the only reason that "Walter Reed" isn't included on the closure list is that WRAIR, located on what is called Walter Reed Annex, in Silver Spring, is staying open. The actual hospital, however, will be closing unless the BRAC gives it a reprieve (which I do not see happening).
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From Fact Sheet Medical BRAC Recommendations for the National Capital Region
From Fact Sheet Medical BRAC Recommendations for the National Capital Region
Establish the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) at Bethesda, Md., as a 300-bed Medical Center with the full range of intensive and complex specialty and subspecialty medical services, including specialized facilities for the most seriously war injured. This facility will serve as the U. S. military’s worldwide tertiary referral center for casualty and beneficiary care.
. . .
Realign Walter Reed Army Medical Center, D.C., by assigning management, clinical, and training activities to the new WRNMMC and the new community hospital at Fort Belvoir. Research and Development activities will relocate and form Centers of Excellence at Fort Sam Houston, Tex., Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., or Fort Detrick, Md.
. . .
Realign the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology by moving the DNA registry and the Medical Examiners functions to Dover Air Force Base, Dover, Del.; the technician training functions to Fort Sam Houston, Tex.; the museum to WRNMMC, and outsource non-military essential pathology activities.
why the surprise? Probably because I'm at that awkward stage where I really am out of the loop, but haven't realized it yet. (I've been out for 1 1/2 years) Heck, I still know phone numbers to specific people at Walter Reed, and I've been gone from there since '98.
It caught me even more by surprise because it was not on the AP list of closures that came out yesterday morning. I'm not sure yet why it wasn't on the list of closures, because with both Walter Reed hospital and Armed Forces Institute of Pathology closing, there's really nothing left on that post. I suspect it is because Walter Reed Annex, a piece of property just outside DC in Silver Spring which houses a fairly new facility for the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research is staying open.
With a little more time to think about it, it probably is a good thing to consolidate the medical facilities. The fellowship I did there was actually a joint program with the Navy Hospital in Bethesda, and I cursed on days where different commitments forced me to drive back and forth between hospitals. They're only 5 miles apart, but it never took less than 40 minutes to go from one to the other because of traffic and parking issues.
But I'm still sorry to see it happen.
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Full BRAC site:
http://www.defenselink.mil/brac/
Pentagon Plans to Close 180 Sites, Shift Area Jobs to Outer Suburbs
From the Washington Post.
Walter Reed, the 96-year-old flagship of military medicine and hospital to several U.S. presidents, is targeted for closure because it is old and underused, Pentagon officials said. Some of its 5,630 workers would move to a renamed Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.
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