Vernon Franklin Sechriest II, MD. is a U.S. Navy Veteran and physician who has dedicated most of his career to serving the healthcare needs of active-duty military and veterans. He has a special interest in the broad spectrum of healthcare issues specific to veterans with combat extremity injuries and he has published extensively on this topic in the medical literature.
In 2006, Dr. Sechriest was serving on active duty in the U.S. Navy as an orthopedic surgeon. As a member of the Naval Medical Center San Diego Orthopedic Department during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, he gained significant experience in caring for patients with combat-related extremity injuries. At that time, Sechriest recalls, “there were major challenges in treating patients with extremity injuries that had resulted from high energy ballistic weapons and especially improvised explosive devices.”
According to Dr. Sechriest, “During the early years of the two wars, the health needs of combat-injured veterans were often very complex, sometimes misunderstood, and occasionally not even recognized.” Sechriest explains that there were “significant gaps in knowledge of, not only how to best care for this population initially, but also how to optimally care for them over the long-term.”
In response to the need for a better understanding of how to best care for the wartime injured, Dr. Sechriest began working with the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) in San Diego as well as the San Diego VA Medical Center. Sechriest explains, “At that time, our work was unique because very little research had been done to describe the long-term health outcomes of patients who had sustained combat-related amputations or limb-threatening injuries.” Dr. Sechriest emphasizes, “this type of investigation required integration of military and VA health data” and, “the research was only possible due to a novel collaboration between the Department of Defense and VA investigators.“
During a decade of collaboration with NHRC San Diego, Dr. Sechriest and his colleagues conducted groundbreaking longitudinal research on long-term physical and mental health outcomes of US veterans with combat-related injuries to the upper and lower extremities. “Our work demonstrated that, in the years following an injury to an arm or leg, depending on the severity and type of early treatment, there were unique physical and mental health outcomes as well as healthcare needs.” Dr. Sechriest emphasizes that the true importance of this research has been in its application to the clinical setting, “where the findings have been used to inform and to optimize the treatment pathways for wounded warriors.”
Although Dr. Sechriest left military service in 2015, he has since joined the Veterans Health Administration. Initially, Dr. Sechriest served as the Chief of Orthopedics and Podiatry at The Minneapolis VA Medical Center. He has recently been appointed as Chief of Staff for The VA Loma Linda Healthcare System. As a veteran serving veterans, Dr. Vernon Franklin Sechriest II, MD remains dedicated to quality improvement and research initiatives that will positively impact the veteran populations of today and tomorrow.
Vernon Franklin Sechriest II, MD
Vernon Sechriest attended Johns Hopkins University. He then studied at the University of Alabama School of Medicine and completed his orthopedic training at The University of Minnesota. After completing a fellowship in Adult Reconstruction of the Hip & Knee at Insall-Scott- Kelly Institute in New York City, he served on active duty as director of the Adult Reconstruction Service at Naval Medical Center San Diego. After leaving the U.S. Navy, he served as an Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery for The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 2015, he joined the Veterans Health Administration as the Chief of Orthopedics and Podiatry for The Minneapolis VA Healthcare System. Since 2021, he has served as Chief of Staff for The VA Loma Linda Healthcare System.