The VA's affiliation with academic medicine: an emergency post-war strategy becomes a permanent partnership

The creation of a cabinet-level department for veterans' programs is an occasion to review medical care of American military veterans, which dates back to colonial times. To meet the medical care crisis caused by large numbers of returning World War II veterans, the Veterans Administration (VA) entered into affiliations with U.S. medical schools, a partnership that provided physicians for veterans and allowed residents to complete graduate medical education. Increasing medical care needs of veterans of World War II and successive conflicts, and legislatively expanded entitlements, have contributed to sustained growth of the VA workload--which in turn has led to an expanded partnership with schools of medicine and allied health sciences. The affiliations continue to serve both partners well and to contribute substantively to society at large by fostering the production of medical manpower and advances in biomedical research.