Garold Minns, M.D., has been going to the Wichita VA hospital since he was around 10 years-old.

He wasn't a medical prodigy, or in need of care. Minns' father, a World War II veteran, received treatment at the hospital, now known as the Robert J. Dole VA Medical Center. Minns accompanied his dad, and amused himself in the basement recreation hall while he waited.

"As a kid, I grew up witnessing the result of wartime injuries," Minns says.

Several decades later, Dr. Minns finds himself on the hospital's campus at least once a week, now in an official capacity. And as Dean of the KU School of Medicine-Wichita, Minns' faculty and residents are also heavily involved with the VA, from treating patients to conducting research to supervising and training students.

The school's relationship with the VA hospital dates to 1970s, when a department chair on the Wichita campus wanted to revive the teaching program there. Previously, the Kansas City campus had worked with the Wichita VA, but had discontinued doing so many years earlier.

Garold Minns and a cohort were the first two residents sent to restart the program and treat VA patients in 1976. "It was kind of an adjustment," Minns says of the transition to treating a population of war veterans. The young residents saw injuries and a variety of service-related conditions that were rare in the general population of hospital patients.

Over the years, the VA teaching program has expanded. "At any given time, there are around a dozen residents at the VA," Minns says, including those specializing in orthopedics, radiology and surgery. "Medical students also go ... around four or five of them a month."

Faculty members, like Michael Heggeness, M.D., who is conducting research on mending war injuries with quick-healing bone putty, are also based in the VA hospital. Tracie Collins, M.D. chair of the school's Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, runs a vascular disease clinic there.

The Wichita VA hospital was built in 1932, following the creation of the Veterans Administration in 1930. It serves most of Kansas, since a facility in Topeka is the only other VA hospital in the state. The next closest hospital west of Wichita is in Denver.

In addition to medical care, the Wichita hospital also offers dental care, optometry and psychiatric care. And the VA is a leader in research in prosthetics, and related prosthetic services needed by many veterans. Although the inpatient population has declined through the decades, from around 120 beds in the 1960s to just 40 today, the outpatient count is in the thousands.

After the modern VA was created, medical schools across the country began partnering with the hospitals to give their students more access to hands-on clinical training.

Residents and students caring for today's veterans address a wide range of medical and psychological needs. "They see war injuries, sometimes very old injuries," Minns says. "Veterans have PTSD and other mental health issues ... psychological problems that are the result of what they experienced while in service to our country."

And the population is increasingly elderly - two-thirds of the hospital population is now geriatric.

The 10 year-old Garold Minns likely didn't foresee that he would have a life-long relationship with the VA hospital, much less that he would be a physician charged with the care of its patients. Today, he retains a strong sense of responsibility and commitment to that work.

Minns sees the partnership with the Dole VA Medical Center as more than just a training opportunity. "Certainly it's an opportunity for students. But, it's also an opportunity to provide services for people who would have trouble getting help otherwise."

"I'm struck by a sign that hangs in the VA," Minns says. "It reads, 'The price of freedom is visible here.' I think about that. I think we have an obligation to take care of those wounds."