Linda Schwartz, R.N., a doctoral candidate in the School of Medicine's department of epidemiology and public health who served as a nurse in Vietnam during the war, will speak on the topic "The Best-Kept Secret: Women in Vietnam" at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 12, in the Beaumont Room of the Sterling Hall of Medicine,
333 Cedar St. Her talk, sponsored by the Program for Humanities in Medicine, is free and open to the public.
Schwartz, who received her master's degree from the School of Nursing in 1984, has a long history of involvement in nursing and veteran organizations. She has testified numerous times before Congress on issues related to veterans' health care, women veterans and the effects of Agent Orange. In 1989, she received a White House appointment to the VA (Veterans' Affairs) Advisory Committee on the Readjustment of Vietnam Era Veterans. On that committee, she advocated the expansion of post traumatic stress disorder treatment for World War II and Korean War veterans, as well as homeless and women veterans. She was later appointed vice chair of the committee, which has been renamed as the VA Advisory Committee on the Readjustment of Vietnam and Other War Veterans. In 1994, she was appointed to the VA Advisory Committee on Women Veterans.
Schwartz is codirector of Project Partnership, which has acquired and developed homes for homeless and disabled veterans in conjunction with the West VA Medical Center. In 1992, she was the first woman to receive the Vietnam Veterans of America's highest honor, the Commendation Award for Justice, Integrity and Meaningful Achievement. In 1995, she became the first woman to receive the prestigious State of Connecticut Veterans Commendation Medal. She was recently elected a reviewer of the Environmental Protection Agency's new regulations on Dioxin.
Schwartz is writing her dissertation on the topic "Physical Health Problems of
Military Women Who Served During the Vietnam War." It will be the first major research investigation of the health of military women from the Vietnam era.
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