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The United States Navy Health Care organization consists of more than 4,300 physicians, 1,200 dentists, 3,900 nurses, and 2,600 administrative, research and clinical specialists. These sailors work on all Navy ships, within Medical Treatment Facilities, and serve on the front lines with Marine Corps Units while providing health care to servicemembers located on bases worldwide. Sailors within Navy Health Care work behind the scenes, as well as on the front lines, to provide physical and mental health care to fellow servicemembers. The men and women in Navy Health Care also provide rapid humanitarian assistance services for people in countries affected by catastrophe or conflict. In addition to providing care to Navy servicemembers and their families, the Navy Health Care Team also supports the Marine Corps, Coast Guard and their dependent populations.[ citation needed ]
The Navy Medical Department consists of four Officer Corps: the Navy Medical Corps, which is made up of physicians; the Navy Nurse Corps; the Navy Dental Corps; and the Navy Medical Service Corps, which consists of 22 communities including Environmental Health, Clinical Psychology and Health Care Administration. Sailors serving within the Enlisted medical community are Navy Hospital Corpsmen, a Corps that has more Medal of Honor recipients than any other Navy Enlisted specialty. [1]
There are four major medical centers located within the United States that are operated by the Navy. East Coast commands include the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, located in Virginia, Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, located in North Carolina, and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, formally known as the National Naval Medical Center and colloquially referred to as the Bethesda Naval Hospital, located in Bethesda, Maryland, which is the primary health care provider for the President and his family. On the West Coast, there is the Naval Medical Center San Diego. Along with these medical centers, there are hospitals and clinics located on all Navy bases across the globe.
In addition to the medical centers and clinics on bases, there are Sailors in the medical sea support system serving on all deployed Navy ships. The U.S. Navy also operates two Hospital Ships, the USNS Mercy and the USNS Comfort. These floating full-service hospitals are stationed on the east and west coasts of the United States, respectively, and are deployed to provide emergency care to U.S. combat forces as well as to support U.S. disaster relief and humanitarian operations worldwide.
The United States Navy offers scholarship opportunities to prospective Sailors interested in a career in health care in exchange for service as commissioned Officers in the Navy. These programs and opportunities include:
USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) is the lead ship of her class of hospital ships in non-commissioned service with the United States Navy. Her sister ship is USNS Comfort (T-AH-20). She is the third US Navy ship to be named for the virtue mercy. In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, Mercy and her crew do not carry any offensive weapons, though defensive weapons are available.
The U.S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) is a direct reporting unit of the U.S. Army that formerly provided command and control of the Army's fixed-facility medical, dental, and veterinary treatment facilities, providing preventive care, medical research and development and training institutions. On 1 October 2019, operational and administrative control of all military and veteran medical facilities transitioned to the Defense Health Agency.
The United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), also referred to as the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service, is the federal uniformed service of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. The commissioned corps' primary mission is the protection, promotion, and advancement of health and safety of the general public.
USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) is a Mercy-class hospital ship of the United States Navy.
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) is a health science university of the U.S. federal government. The primary mission of the school is to prepare graduates for service to the U.S. at home and abroad in the medical corps as medical professionals, nurses, and physicians.
The United States Navy Nurse Corps was officially established by Congress in 1908; however, unofficially, women had been working as nurses aboard Navy ships and in Navy hospitals for nearly 100 years. The Corps was all-female until 1965.
The Medical Corps of the United States Navy is a staff corps consisting of military physicians in a variety of specialties. It is the senior corps among all staff corps, second in precedence only to line officers. The corps of commissioned officers was founded on March 3, 1871.
The Dental Corps of the United States Navy consists of naval officers who have a doctorate in either dental surgery (DDS) or dental medicine (DMD) and who practice dentistry for Sailors and Marines to ensure optimal oral health.
In the United States Armed Forces, a line officer or officer of the line is a U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps commissioned officer or warrant officer who exercises general command authority and is eligible for operational command positions, as opposed to officers who normally exercise command authority only within a Navy Staff Corps. The term line officer is also used by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Coast Guard to indicate that an officer is eligible for command of operational, viz., tactical or combat units. The term is not generally used by officers of the U.S. Army – the roughly corresponding Army terms are basic branch and special branch, qualified officers, although the concepts are not entirely synonymous, as some Army special branch officers are eligible to hold command outside their branch specialty.
The Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) program is a college-based, commissioned officer training program of the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps.
A hospital corpsman is an enlisted medical specialist of the United States Navy, who may also serve in a U.S. Marine Corps unit. The corresponding rating within the United States Coast Guard is health services technician (HS).
William Richard Charette was a United States Navy master chief hospital corpsman who received the nation's highest military decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor. He was awarded the medal for heroic actions "above and beyond the call of duty" on March 27, 1953, while assigned to a Marine Corps rifle company during the Korean War. He retired from the Navy after 26 years of service.
The United States Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) consists of the five distinct medical corps of the Air Force and enlisted medical technicians. The AFMS was created in 1949 after the newly independent Air Force's first Surgeon General, Maj. General Malcolm C. Grow (1887–1960), convinced the United States Army and President Harry S. Truman that the Air Force needed its own medical service.
The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC), formerly known as the National Naval Medical Center and colloquially referred to as the Bethesda Naval Hospital, Walter Reed, or Navy Med, is a United States' tri-service military medical center, located in the community of Bethesda, Maryland, near the headquarters of the National Institutes of Health. It is one of the most prominent U.S. military medical centers in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and the United States, having served numerous U.S. presidents since the 20th century.
The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) is an agency of the United States Department of the Navy that manages health care activities for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. BUMED operates hospitals and other health care facilities as well as laboratories for biomedical research, and trains and manages the Navy's many staff corps related to medicine. Its headquarters is located at the Defense Health Headquarters in Fairfax County, Virginia. BUMED has 63,000 medical personnel and more than a million eligible beneficiaries.
Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD), also known as Bob Wilson Naval Hospital and informally referred to as "Balboa Hospital", or “The Pink Palace” is a technologically advanced Navy medical treatment facility. Located within the grounds of Balboa Park in San Diego, the hospital has played a role in the history of San Diego for more than 100 years. The goal has remained constant, to provide the finest medical care in a family-centered care environment to operational forces, their families, and veterans. Organizationally, the hospital is first and foremost a military command.
Rear Admiral Christine M. Bruzek-Kohler was the 21st Director of the United States Navy Nurse Corps, and served as the Commander Naval Medical Center San Diego and Navy Medicine West from May 2009 to August 2010. She officially retired from the Navy in December 2010.
The Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP), formerly Naval Hospital Portsmouth, and originally Norfolk Naval Hospital, is a United States Navy medical center in Portsmouth, Virginia, United States. It is the oldest continuously running hospital in the Navy medical system.
A Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman (SARC) is a United States Navy hospital corpsman who provides MARSOC and other USSOCOM units advanced trauma management associated with combatant diving and parachute entry. Traditionally, they are attached to the Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance companies to help support the Command Element of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force in special reconnaissance missions.
Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune is a Defense Health Agency-run facility that is located on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, USA.