I am a Licensed Psychologist who has been honing my clinical skills for over 20 years — connecting with others, making them comfortable, listening deeply, and hearing what people say and don't say. My greatest fulfillment comes from those moments when genuine human connection enables healing. When COVID layoffs included my university counseling position, I ended up in the world of VA disability exams. It was a stop-gap job. And I dreaded it. The training, emphasizing policies and protocols over the humans we were serving, felt antithetical to everything I valued about psychology. But the moment I sat across from my first veteran, the policies and protocols faded into background noise, and what emerged was crystal clear: these are humans deserving of dignity, understanding, and accurat...