Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Overview and Treatment

Presenter Bio - Paul Sargent, M.D., Psychiatrist

NOTICE: This presentation was given and recorded in a private capacity and does not reflect the opinions of the Department of Defense or the United States Navy.

Dr. Paul Sargent was raised in San Diego, California. He completed his Bachelor of Science at the University of Utah in 1996, and attended medical school at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, graduating in 2002.  Dr. Sargent completed an internship in Psychiatry at Naval Medical Center San Diego and was then selected for further training as a US Naval Flight Surgeon at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, in Pensacola Florida.  After completion of Flight Surgeon training, he served as the Medical Officer for Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 267 at Camp Pendleton, California.   Dr. Sargent was the first Naval Officer to receive the Fleet Marine Force Qualification Pin within Marine Aircraft Group-39 (MAG-39), and was nominated for the III MAW Flight Surgeon of the year after publishing an article on back pain in rotary wing aviators. He then completed his residency in Psychiatry, and was selected from among his peers to be the Chief Resident for the program of 21 residents. He deployed to Iraq in 2009 where he served as Staff Psychiatrist for 2nd Medical Battalion, USMC, Camp Al Taqqadum.  In that position, he was the sole Psychiatrist for 19,000 service members in Al Anbar province, and created and implemented “Combat Sleep School,” a new cognitive behavioral insomnia treatment program for deployed personnel.  Upon redeployment, he returned to NMCSD and was the founding Program Director for the Overcoming Adversity and Stress Injury Support (OASIS) program;  a first-of-its-kind,  DoD, residential treatment program for  treatment resistant PTSD.   After two years of developing and implementing the program, Dr. Sargent’s patients achieved significant improvements in anxiety levels, insomnia, and depressive symptoms even after previous treatments had failed.  Dr.  Sargent is also a credentialed acupuncture provider and incorporates a variety of non-medication techniques into his treatment plans.  Dr. Sargent has published multiple articles in peer reviewed journals, most recently discussing Complementary approaches in the treatment of PTSD.  

  By LCDR Paul Sargent, M.D.