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Congratulations to the newest Chief Master Sergeants-select in the Air Force Medical Service!

COYLE RICHARD 4A0X0
DENTON PRICE 4A0X0
GATEWOOD TUNDRA 4A0X0
MARCHANT DAVID 4A0X0
MILLER YVONNE 4A0X0
MORRIS PATRICIA 4A0X0
YAHN TANYA 4A0X0
JOYAL ROGER 4A1X0
SAULS JIMMY 4A1X0
OAKES ARMANDO 4A2X0
PARKER ANDRE 4B0X0
RICHARDSON VALERIA 4B0X0
ARNOLD KEVIN 4C0X0
CAPPS DEBRA 4D0X0
RICKEY SHAWN 4E0X0
WILLIAMS ROBIN 4E0X0
BARNARD CHRIS 4H0X0
BURNS STEVE 4J0X0
BRANDT MARK 4M0X0
ANDERSON MARC 4N0X0
BROWN RICHARD 4N0X0
FRUITS DAWN 4N0X0
MALDONADO EDWIN 4N0X0
MARKS ADAM 4N0X0
NIES KEVIN 4N0X0
SPENCER ROBERT 4N0X0
WEBB DARYL 4N0X0
WILTZ CLEVELAND 4N0X0
WOOD MICHAEL 4N0X0
YUN JOHN 4N0X0
DAVIS ADRIAN 4P0X0
SNEED RUSSELL 4R0X0
FOSTER STEVEN 4T0X0
HILL MONICA 4T0X0
VALLELY DIANNA 4T0X0
RUSSEY MICHAEL 4V0X0
JONES THOMAS 4Y0X0
LOWERY ROBERT 4Y0X0
PRICE MICHAEL 4Y0X0
PUTT TRACY 4Y0X0
VOGEL RICHARD 4Y0X0

No surprise that women are play a much larger role on the medical side of the Air Force than they do on the “line” side; just the nature of the business, since women have traditionally been far more prevalent in healthcare than in other sectors of the workforce. It’s cool to see the military highlight women leaders in this series. The Air Force leaders highlighted:

- Chief Master Sergeant Marie Potts: Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Marie Potts is the superintendent for the 435th Medical Squadron at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. As the sole Air Force Chief Master Sergeant in a medical joint service environment that consists of five Army Sergeant Majors and one Navy Master Chief Petty Officer, her roles and responsibilities go far beyond day-to-day operations. As the senior enlisted leader, she ensures airmen are trained and equipped to provide world-class healthcare, deploy at a moment’s notice and are ready for increased professional growth and development, along with providing equal opportunities to soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines while ensuring each culture remains intact.

- Master Sergeant Susan Seker: Air Force Master Sgt. Susan J. Seker is the non-commissioned officer in charge of TRICARE Operations/Patient Administration at the 39th Medical Group, Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. Seker’s dedication to day-to-day health services management won her the 2006 U.S. Air Forces in Europe Outstanding Health Plan Management Senior Noncommissioned Officer of the Year award.

- Brig Gen Patricia Lewis: the first female Chief of the Air Force Medical Service Corps. Rising through the ranks to become assistant surgeon general of the Air Force and the chief of the Medical Service Corps, Brig. Gen. Patricia Lewis always refused to recognize her gender as an obstacle. Also includes a brief video interview.

This might come in handy: the good folks over at Air Force Writer have begun compiling some examples of EPR bullets that Air Force Medics can use. So far they only have examples for 4A0X1 (Health Services Managers) and 4B0X1 (Bioenvironmental Engineering), but I suspect that EPR samples for the other AFSCs are in the works. Also: a list of useful phrases to incorporate into EPRs. They also maintain a good list of unofficial Air Force community sites.

The Air Force selects twelve enlisted members each year as “Outstanding Airman of the Year” (OAY), and the competition, as you can imagine, is pretty tough. This year, an Air Force medic named Tammy Shaw has been honored as one of the 12 OAY:

Tech. Sgt. Tammy Shaw…(a) noncommissioned officer laboratory technician at the base medical center, Shaw was recognized for her on-the-job leadership and job performance as well as her community involvement. One of her working accomplishments was to pilot the Department of Defense’ largest DNA collection site, 38,000 samples, with only a 0.02 percent rejection rate. Partly because of this, her laboratory was named “Best in DOD.” In addition to her working feats, Shaw completed 28 hours towards a bachelor’s degree in health sciences while carrying a 4.0 average. She also completed a Community College of the Air Force degree and became a nationally certified lab technician.

Interestingly, last year saw Airman Aubrey Linn selected as one of the 12 Outstanding Airmen, and she, too, is a laboratory technician. Chalk up another victory to the 4Ts!

Military physicians are usually not afforded “spotlight” treatment by the media; that accord is usually reserved for operational (ie, Line) officers, and usually flag officers at that. But recently retired (2006) Air Force physician Colonel Katherine Scheirman has made some headlines lately by being an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, and most recently regarding the political hay over Senator Obama’s trip to Germany:

“In Germany, Senator Obama made the right decision to respect wounded troops, and the doctors and nurses doing crucial and time-sensitive work, by not making a visit that was characterized as a campaign event by the Pentagon. Senator Obama should be thanked for putting our military above politics. And, I would hope that John McCain would think in those same terms, the next time he is put in a similar situation. Senator Obama has voted for the troops when John McCain has not, most recently on the new GI Bill. I am happy that Senator Obama puts the welfare of our troops above politics.”

I hate to bring up “politics” here on Air Force Medics, but seriously — her role as Chief of Medical Operations for USAFE/SG has virtually nothing to do with what occurred (or didn’t) last week with the Obama & McCain camps. As a physician, she may have been concerned about troop welfare, but political visits by high-ranking officials are pretty routine. If a sitting Senator wants to visit troops, then he can and will. Her “expert” opinion as USAFE/SGO means very little, in this context.
And I say that as someone who worked with Dr Scheirman (very briefly) during our respective active-duty careers and found her to be a very nice, professional lady. It’s just that, in this instance, her comments are irrelevant, no matter what the Daily Kos kids and Democratic Underground wackos think.
Unrelated - but possibly of interest - Col Scheirman is also a graduate of the Baylor MHA program.

It’s not too often that Air Force medics perish in a plane crash, but the B-52 crash in Guam last week that killed six Airmen sadly claimed the life of Colonel (Dr) George Martin. Col Martin served as the deputy commander of the 36th Medical Group, the Air Force clinic at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. By all accounts, Col Martin truly loved everything about the Air Force, both within Earth’s orbit and above it.

As a student at Ohio State, George Martin had posters of the galaxy on his apartment walls. Astronauts were celebrities to him — he seemed to know all of their names. He wanted to fly. He joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps and graduated in 1980. A bad knee kept him from space, but he still craved it, one of his classmates said. He went on to medical school at OSU, and he later specialized in emergency medicine and aerospace medicine. He became a flight surgeon.

The Barksdale AFB website has a memorial page for the six Airmen; five of them were assigned to Barksdale; only Col Martin was assigned to Andersen AFB. Colonel Martin leaves behind a pregnant wife and young daughter. RIP, Col Martin.

How many of you are familiar with the Baylor MHA program? It’s the military’s Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) program that partners with Baylor University. The actual program is conducted at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. It is taught by both civilian Baylor professors and military instructors, and the prerequisites for entry it is pretty tough to get into.

“If you graduate from college with a 2.0 GPA you can still apply to Harvard Business School’s MBA program,” Coppola says. “You won’t get accepted, but you can apply. Here at Baylor, you have to be a top-level performer just to be allowed to apply - and then there is more culling on this end.” (Patrick and Coppola, for example, competed as students against nearly two dozen other soldiers for two of the Army slots).
“The students refer to it as ‘taking a long drink from a fire hose,’” says Lt. Col Nick Coppola, the program’s director. “Typically, the first year they spend about 40 hours in class and another 50 hours studying each week in addition to maintaining all the other military standards required of them. So that’s a pretty appropriate metaphor.”

The program consists of one academic year at Ft Sam Houston totalling 60 credit hours. Courses include strategic planning, quantitative analysis, international health, epidemiology, finance, information systems, health policy, and medical jurisprudence. A grueling year, especially when coupled with military requirements such as physical fitness and team projects.
After completing the academic year, students are sent to year-long residency programs at large hospitals or other healthcare agencies, such as Johns Hopkins, Wilford Hall Medical Center, and Ben Taub General Hospital. During residency, the students observe and learn about managing large healthcare systems, complete various projects for the COO or Administrator, and complete a comprehensive Graduate Management Project.
The academic standards, the comprehensive course of study, and the demanding residency all add up to the Baylor MHA program being ranked #20 in the nation by US News & World Report; it is almost always in the top 25 out of more than 300 programs in the nation.
Also of note: the Baylor MHA program is open to all branches of military service (AF, Army, Navy) and also to civilians in the Veterans Administration. Graduates are largely healthcare administrators (MSC officers), but every class also includes a handful of nurses, at least one physician and one dentist, and a smattering of allied health officers such as pharmacists and podiatrists.
If you’d like to learn more about the Baylor MHA program or the history of it and the alumni, one of the long-time professors in the program, David Mangelsdorff, maintains a large list of links and resources.
And how do I know so much about the program? Why, I’m a graduate, of course! If you plan to make the AFMS a career and have a passion for healthcare administration, then this is the program for you. You will learn things and meet people that simply can’t be duplicated in a “civilian” MHA program.

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