It's easy to forget that the second word in Surgeon General is General, and she has an important role in overseeing the public health responses to national emergencies. She has the power to deploy her officers to disaster sites, just like a general in the Army does.
In addition to the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, and Air Force, the United States has two other uniformed services that most people aren't familiar with: the Commissioned Corps of the USPHS and the National Oceanography and Atmospheric Administration. They perform a crucial, but often less-than-glamorous jobs for our country, and the overseeing agencies need to know that they have a cadre of trained professionals that they can send around the country as needed.
In the case of the Public Health Service, the role is obvious. Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals are needed at a minute's notice for many different types of public health emergencies. The NOAA officers are deployed to survey extreme weather events and monitor our coastlines. In both cases, the officers wear a military-style uniform and are eligible to be mobilized to anywhere in the country where there is a need for their services.
The Commissioned Corps of the USPHS got its start in the early 1800s, providing care in marine hospitals along the coasts and major waterways. They provided health services to commercial fishers and the US Navy at the time. Their location next to major seaports put them in an ideal position to provide TB screening and other health services to disembarking immigrants coming off the ships. Their role expanded to providing care for other marginalized populations and controlling the infections that were rampant at the time. Those roots set up the modern Public Health Service. They continue to provide safety net medical care for people across the country, oversee biomedical and infectious disease research, and respond to all types of public health emergencies.
In return for being "on-call" for the country, the officers receive generous time off benefits, and other military perks like tax-free housing and VA health care after retirement. All in all, it's a pretty sweet gig, especially since the deployments are generally in areas with a real need, and in situations that would be very gratifying to help out with. I could definitely see myself doing something like this in a few years.
The Commissioned Corps of the USPHS got its start in the early 1800s, providing care in marine hospitals along the coasts and major waterways. They provided health services to commercial fishers and the US Navy at the time. Their location next to major seaports put them in an ideal position to provide TB screening and other health services to disembarking immigrants coming off the ships. Their role expanded to providing care for other marginalized populations and controlling the infections that were rampant at the time. Those roots set up the modern Public Health Service. They continue to provide safety net medical care for people across the country, oversee biomedical and infectious disease research, and respond to all types of public health emergencies.
In return for being "on-call" for the country, the officers receive generous time off benefits, and other military perks like tax-free housing and VA health care after retirement. All in all, it's a pretty sweet gig, especially since the deployments are generally in areas with a real need, and in situations that would be very gratifying to help out with. I could definitely see myself doing something like this in a few years.
