Linda Torres DNP, CRNA, CCRN, Named Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Health, VHA

📷: Linda Torres DNP, CRNA, CCRN Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for Health, Veterans Health Administration

Dr. Linda Torres serves as an advisor to the senior leadership team at the Veterans Health Administration. Among her projects, she is leading VA’s efforts in the White House’s re-launch of the Cancer Moonshot, where service-member environmental exposures are a focus.

Dr. Torres served in the Army as a critical care nurse and deployed in 2012 to Bastion Hospital and Bagram Airfield Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

After her time in service, she earned her doctorate in nursing practice, specializing in nurse anesthesia. She continues to care for patients as a CRNA in North Philadelphia. She earned her doctorate in nursing with a focus on nurse anesthesia from the University of Pennsylvania. There, she enrolled in courses outside of nursing such as non-profit leadership and government relations.

Beyond nursing, Dr. Torres served as the service director and then policy director for the all-volunteer veteran non-profit Action Tank. Her work in this organization focused on the tree canopy, firearm violence, food insecurity, and substance use. She continues to volunteer and plant trees.

Dr. Torres also serves on the board of another veteran non-profit, Team Foster.

PANA Celebrates Military CRNAs on Veterans Day 2021

Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) have proudly and courageously provided anesthesia care to enlisted men and women, officers, and veterans in all branches of the military, from World War I to the present. THANK YOU, for your service, and Happy Veterans Day!

Thank you for supporting the VHA Initiative!

Pennsylvania’s CRNAs and SRNAs made sure their voices were heard during a 60-day comment period for the U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VHA) rulemaking to authorize Full Practice Authority for CRNAs and APRNs working within the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) health-care system.

VHA received 167,000 comments nationally, which was 25 times more than any the agency had received since it instituted online comment submission in 2006. Beyond a doubt, this is a topic of keen interest to veterans, their families, and the American public.

We would also like to thank everyone who took the time to write a letter to their local paper about this issue. Anesthesiologists were also active letter writers in opposition to this rule and we were able to respond to many of their letters while also publishing letters proactively to push out our messages. Together we were able to have letters published in the following areas of the state:

• Allentown Morning Call

• Easton Express Times (Lehigh Valley Live)

• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

• Scranton Times Tribune (two letters: July 19th, July 20th)

• West Chester Daily Local

• Wilkes-Barre Times Leader

All of us at PANA are so proud of the work so many of you put into advocating so strongly for this initiative. It could be months before the U.S. Veterans Health Administration announces its final rulemaking. You can be sure we’ll keep you posted. Thank you again.

Ann Culp, CRNA, DNP

PANA President

Derek A. Reckard, CRNA, MSN, PHRN

PANA Federal Political Director