Dr Klotman’s Week 218 Video Address focuses on Memorial Day and the relationship of VA Hospitals with Medical Schools. That relationship goes back to the original authorization of the VA hospital system after WW II. Susan and I both had part of our medical school clinical training at the VA hospital in Houston – before the current DeBakey VA hospital was built. We both had part of our core surgical rotation there, and I subsequently had a specialty rotation in gastroenterology at that hospital. The old VA hospital of the mid-70’s was a dingy and depressing place. It got a much-needed upgrade in the early 90’s.
In 1991, I went to work at a VA outpatient clinic here in Austin. I spent five years there. Some of my contemporaries spent the majority of their careers there. It was a good place to work. Our patients were the best.
Our offspring Nicolas did much of his Infectious Disease clinical fellowship at the new VA in Houston. So, our medical family, like many others, has a long history with the VA. We salute those who serve and have served as well as those who have chosen to care for them after their service.
In the world of COVID this week, there is nothing terrible to report, and we are grateful for that. I read an abstract of one paper this week that reported that individuals who had auto-immune diseases (inflammatory bowel disease, Lupus, Rheumatoid arthritis, Psoriatic arthritis/psoriasis) had significantly reduced anti-COVID antibodies at 6-months post-vaccination. It is hardly a surprise. Illnesses that arise from derangements of the immune response typically affect all of immune functions.
Another paper reported that persons who had COVID vaccination had a much lower risk of developing long-COVID after subsequent infection. I think that this has been previously reported, and this new report just adds to the body of evidence that COVID vaccination protects against the serious acute as well as chronic consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection.