Vol. 5 -- # Sa cover
Public Health Service Update
USUHS
First Year Class
February 29, 1984

 

This was apparently an orientation lecture for the First Year Class of the Uniformed
Services University of Health Sciences, and I had joined the other Surgeons General of
the Armed Forces who preceded me in speaking. I pointed out that I was not one who
came up through the ranks, but was a Presidential Appointee and came in at the top.
Unlike the other Surgeons General, I noted, my job was subject to the dirtiest side of
politics, in spite of the fact that when I was confirmed, I said that my job would be as
apolitical as I could make it. I attempted to give an idea of the mission of the Public
Health Service and the way that it is organized to carry out that mission. I wanted to talk
about how we functioned at the time of the lecture, but also how we did things in earlier
days and a few educated guesses as to what the Public Health Service might look like and
how it might function in the future.

I pointed out some things obvious to the “Command”, but not to the new students. The
Public Health Service is a federation of five individual agencies, each with its own
special brand of expertise, its own constituencies, and its own unique record of
contributions to public health in this country. The Public Health Service is a non-
combatant uniformed service with a proud tradition going back to 1798.

I also pointed out a huge laundry list of things that the Public Health Service did and was
uniquely qualified to do, such as: medical excellence and its record as a caring and
compassionate organization, our national commitment to provide quality health care to
the poor and disadvantaged, the work of our Commissioned Officers in the health centers
of the inner city, the rural ghettos, migrant labor camps, coal mining country, and the
seacoast and waterways of America.

I mentioned the Indian Health Service and the thirty-year’s record we have of staffing
hospitals, clinics, and health stations serving more than 200 Indian tribes and Alaskan
Native villages and some of the results thereof.

I then topped off with the function of the agencies: Alcohol, Drug Abuse, Mental Health
Administration (ADAMHA), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), Health Resource and Service Administration (HRSA), The
National Institutes of Health (NIH) with its eleven individual Institutes supporting 16,
000 extramural research projects and 2,000 intramural projects each year, and finally the
Office of Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH).

I closed with another list of what the Surgeon General himself does in his appointed role.

 

Alaskan Natives
“Block Grants”
Cancer
Categorical health grant program

Cuban and Haitian refugees

Decrease in infant mortality

Disease prevention, health promotion

Elimination of Smallpox

Epidemic of mass hysteria on the West Bank of the
Jordan

Genetic codes

Heart disease

Human Immunology

Indian tribes

Monoclonal hybridoma technology

Protection against the exportation of highly
Infectious Diseases

Protection of seacoast waterways

Stroke

Support of all the Public Health Service Agencies

 

Hill Burton Program

Indian Health Service

Nobel Laureates

World Health Assembly arena