Military & VeteransDr. Perl describes the important and emotional meetings he has with the families of service members whose brains he has studied.
One of the things that I get involved in in
this has been to meet with the families of our donors. And frequently they want to meet with us,
find out what we found and what it means. And these have been very important meetings,
because it shows us, you know, the real nature of the problem we’re dealing with and to
be able to get their stories in terms of what it was like, to see a loved one completely
change in a deployment and think … I mean, time after time they repeat to us and say,
“He came back a changed person that we couldn’t recognize. He was never like this before.” Things of that nature. The other thing that’s been very gratifying
is for them to express the fact that their loved one who’ve died, frequently in very
tragic circumstances, is continuing to serve their country and continuing to contribute
to the effort in terms of learning more about this problem so we can better deal with it. So we urge our families to come in and speak
to us. Very often we get new insights into the problems
they were dealing with and clinical issues that were particularly at hand and also be
able to tell them exactly what the donation has meant to us and how it has contributed
to our understanding.
Posted on BrainLine December 13, 2017.
About the author: Daniel P. Perl, MD
Dr. Perl is a Professor of Pathology at USUHS and Director of the CNRM's Brain Tissue Repository, where he has established a state-of-the-art neuropathology laboratory dedicated to research on the acute and long-term effects of traumatic brain injury among military personnel.
(Photo by Cpl. Bobby J. Yarbrough/Released)