Acting Surgeon General Confident in the Battle Against Tobacco, Ebola, and Preventable Diseases

Not only do we see leadership of public health here within the United States, but we also see leadership on an international level by profiling some of the major public health issues.

The PHS response to Ebola in the U.S. and Africa

RADM Lushniak. As many of the readers may know, the Surgeon General is the commander of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. We have 6,800 public health professionals. These are officers working in 11 different categories working across the government, to protect, promote, and advance the health and safety of the nation.

[In October] I was in Anniston, Alabama, seeing about 70 of my officers being trained for deployment to Liberia. And in fact, in the next weeks, we will have a full team in Liberia who will be serving in the Monrovia Medical Unit and providing health care to both Liberian as well as foreign health care workers. I want to get that message out, because this battle against Ebola is occurring here in the U.S. and being done very well by the CDC and the NIH and elements of the Commissioned Corps who are working with the CDC.

At the same time, we know that the real success of eliminating Ebola and stopping the epidemic lies in Western Africa. Dr. Frieden has said that. We’re confident that there will not be an Ebola outbreak on U.S. soil; however, we need to be able to stop this outbreak. Therefore, I’m very proud of my officers who are heading off to Western Africa.

The role of the PHS Commissioned Corps

RADM Lushniak. Most of my officers are dedicated to who? To serving the underserved and vulnerable populations. Many of my clinical officers are assigned, for example, to the Indian Health Service and are providing care to that important population of our nation. They’re assigned to the Federal Bureau of Prisons and, therefore, working with the Department of Justice in getting health care to, again, a vulnerable and underserved population. They’re working at the NIH in a clinical perspective. They’re treating the Coast Guard as the main medical and dental and environment health officers. So I have officers scattered all around, and in essence, they see everything that any other practitioner sees in this country.

The emphasis certainly from the Office of the Surgeon General has been on prevention. It’s prevention of preventable diseases; many of them are chronic diseases. And certainly, my officers not only are out there treating those individual patients, but at the same time are implementing and taking to task on the importance of prevention as a general theme. We make sure that the word of the Surgeon General’s office gets spread to local communities through our practitioners.

Raising the Commissioned Corps profile

RADM Lushniak. We need to get the word out. Part of our issue, I’ll be honest with you, is that oftentimes people don’t even know the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps exists. Therefore, even when my officers are part of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention response, they’re embedded with other facets of CDC.

What I want to proudly say is that right now this Monrovia Medical Unit will be run by U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. This is the only entity of the U.S. government that will actually have direct patient care responsibilities in Western Africa. That being said, we’re also proud that this year is the 125th anniversary of the Commissioned Corps as a uniformed service in this country. So 125 years ago an act was passed by Congress to be able to establish this uniformed service.

Finally, I’d like to say that no other nation has a uniformed service like this. I keep saying that I love my sister services. I love the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard; but many other nations have similar type entities.

The reality of the situation is that no other nation on this planet has a uniformed service purely dedicated to public health. We are an unarmed service, and we are part of the Department of Health and Human Services, but we are just as proud to be officers. We are just as proud to be serving our nation in uniform on a slightly different mission but one that has, again, a noble cause associated with it.

Reaching the top of the PHS

RADM Lushniak. I’m honored and humbled to be in this position at this stage of my career. I came in 26, almost 27 years ago into the United States Public Health Service as a young lieutenant. My goal at that time was to be an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s how I started my career, doing what’s deemed to be shoe leather epidemiology, going out there and getting my hands dirty and being able to try to make this nation a better place and to protect the public’s health.