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| RADM
David Rutstein, MD, MPH • Chief Professional Officer of the PPAC • Chief Medical Officer of the USPHS • Director: Office of Force Readiness and Deployment, Office of the Surgeon General 5600 Fishers Lane, Room 18C-26 Rockville, MD 20857 Phone: (301) 443-3859 Fax: (301) 443-1525 david.rutstein@hhs.gov Biography Message 10/07/08 New! Message 12/28/07 Message 01/10/07 Message 08/07/06 Message 09/27/05 Message 06/17/05 ____________________________________________ |
 RADM David Rutstein, MD |
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Biography He began his medical education at Morehouse School of Medicine and graduated from Brown University Medical School. CAPT Rutstein completed residency training in family medicine at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, California and is a diplomate of the American Board of Family Practice. After completing residency training, CAPT
Rutstein served for 13 years as a National Health Service Corps family
physician in the state hospitals of Pohnpei and Yap, both in the Federated
States of Micronesia. While in Micronesia, CAPT Rutstein directed a wide
array of clinical and public health initiatives, substantially improving
the health care and public health infrastructure in the country. In 2000,
CAPT Rutstein returned from Micronesia to assume the Chief Clinical Officer
and subsequently the Chief Medical Officer positions of the National Health
Service Corps, with broad administrative and leadership responsibilities
concerning clinical and public health issues. In 2003, he became the Deputy
Associate Administrator for Health Professions in HRSA sharing responsibility
for the development, distribution and retention of the health care workforce
serving underserved populations in the United States. In 2005 he assumed
his current position in HRSA. CAPT Rutstein has been a regular corps officer since 2004, and has received numerous awards and honors, from within the PHS and the private sector. Some of these include the PHS Distinguished Service Medal, the PHS Outstanding Service Medal with Valor, the PHS Citation, the PHS Outstanding Unit Citation, the PHS Crisis Response Service Award, two PHS Isolated Hardship Awards, the PHS Foreign Duty Award and an Honorary Medical Degree as well as a Distinguished Alumnus Award, both from Morehouse School of Medicine. In addition to his administrative responsibilities,
CAPT Rutstein continues to serve as a family physician at East of the
River Community Health Center in Washington, D.C. as well as an occasional
instructor of both Advanced Trauma Life Support and Tropical Medicine/Public
Health at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Message from CAPT Rutstein 10/7/2008 New! From: Rutstein, David (OS) Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 5:31 PM To: COMMCORPS_MEDOFFCRS@LIST.NIH.GOV Subject: Medical Category Update Colleagues: Greetings from Rockville, Maryland! It's been about
10 months since my last Still, there have been some changes of interest to the
medical category. Retention and Recruitment We've made some headway in implementing some policies
designed to address The Assistant Secretary for Health and the Acting Surgeon
General approved Also approved and initiated was the Assignment Inceptive
Pay (AIP) pilot. Promotions Leadership Change I am continually impressed by the caliber of our category:
physicians who All the best, David Rutstein, M.D., M.P.H. It gives me great pleasure to write to you in my new role as Chief Professional Officer for the Medical Category of the United States Public Health Service. I am honored to have been chosen for this 4-year position and will strive to be worthy of the confidence placed in me by our Surgeon General, VADM Richard Carmona. I am particularly aware of the critical period in the Corps’ history in which I assume this position—a post 9/11 era during which the Corps has been called upon to undergo a major transformation. In carrying out my duties (which include providing leadership and coordination of medical professional affairs for the Office of the Surgeon General and the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as guidance and advice to the Physician Professional Advisory Committee on matters such as the recruitment, assignment, deployment, retention, and career development of US PHS physicians), I will need the support, insight and creative ideas of all of you, the physicians in the Commissioned Corps. I welcome your advice and counsel. All of you (there are 1,112 officers in the Medical Category as of today) are integral to the Commissioned Corps. Your work in diverse assignments profoundly affects the people of the United States, as well as populations around the world. You shepherd critical research and regulatory projects through giant bureaucracies, conduct ongoing disease surveillance activities, accept difficult and sometimes dangerous assignments, care for underserved and disenfranchised populations, promote health and prevent disease—and you do all this with little or no public recognition. Regardless of the agency to which you are assigned, you have chosen service over material reward, and demonstrate day in and day out a genuine desire to serve humanity, particularly those in greatest need. I am humbled by the awesome responsibility of representing all of you, a collective cadre without equal, anywhere. In recent years, the Corps has seen a decline in the number of physicians entering service. This is particularly alarming given the public health challenges facing the nation. The rising burden of non-communicable diseases continues to strain our health care resources, especially for the underserved. Obesity, diabetes and heart disease continue to rage forward in our nation. Meanwhile, we face an ever increasing threat of infectious diseases—diseases that are no longer contained by geographic or political boundaries. More than one million Americans are now living with HIV and recent experiences with SARS and West Nile Virus may pale into insignificance should influenza once again attain pandemic proportions. Recent events around the globe have highlighted the degree to which HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, poverty, natural disasters of near Biblical proportions and political instability in resource poor countries continue to threaten the health of the entire human race. Our organizational response must include the recruitment and retention of globally-minded physicians, and we must assist those already in the Corps to develop a greater appreciation of the health threats looming abroad. Equally important is the need for the Corps’ physicians to develop a greater sensitivity and knowledge of public health issues—issues facing our nation and the planet it shares with others. The fascination with curing disease, the dedication to all patients, and the willingness to endure personal hardship for the noble calling of medicine must be effectively extended to the domestic and international practice of public health. I look forward to working with all of you as we address these and other important challenges. Feel free to contact me with your thoughts and ideas. I can be reached by email at david.rutstein@HHS.GOV or by telephone at (240) 443-6588. I am confident that, working together over the next 4 years, the Medical Category of the Commissioned Corps will grow and flourish, commensurate with its vital role and considerable influence, in protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of the Nation. All the best,
CAPT David Rutstein Chief Professional Officer, Medical Category ______________________________________________________________________________________ From: CAPT David Rutstein [david.rutstein@HHS.GOV] Sent: Monday, August 07, 2006 2:36 PM To: COMMCORPS_MEDOFFCRS@LIST.NIH.GOV Subject: Message From Chief Medical Officer Physicians of the Commissioned Corps Colleagues: It has been nearly a year since my last letter to you as the Chief Medical Officer of the United States Public Health Service (USPHS). A great deal has happened in the USPHS over the last year including:
Meanwhile, medical officers throughout the Corps continue to serve with excellence in diverse and significant ways. In the last few months I have had the pleasure of visiting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the sole purpose of meeting, advising and learning from medical officers, and have been inspired by the capacity of our officers and our category. I am grateful to the medical officers at the NIH and CDC for their willingness to arrange and host these visits - visits that served to improve communication and address concerns. I look forward to upcoming visits to several locations within the Indian Health Service as well as to the Food and Drug Administration for the same purposes, and to meeting more of you at these and other locations. You have received this letter via the new
Listserv (commcorps_medoffcrs@list.nih.gov) As always, should you wish, I encourage you to contact me directly with your thoughts and concerns at david.rutstein@hhs.gov or by telephone at 240.443-6588. Ours is a category within the USPHS that is held in the highest esteem, from within the Corps and outside it. Daily, our officers advance the science, health and strength of our Nation - and I amgrateful to all of you for your continued pursuit of excellence in service to humanity. The future of the USPHS is bright, in large part due to the collective devotion to service, excellence and leadership you demonstrate as medical officers within the Corps. All the best, CAPT David Rutstein Chief Medical Officer, USPHS _______________________________________________________________________________________ From: CAPT David Rutstein [david.rutstein@HHS.GOV] Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 4:49 PM To: List CCRF Subject: OFRD Message to Commissioned Officers of the USPHS Colleagues: It gives me great pleasure to write to you in my new role as Acting Director of the Office of Force Readiness and Deployment (OFRD). I am honored to have been asked to serve in this position and will strive to be worthy of the confidence placed in me by our Acting Surgeon General, RADM Kenneth Moritsugu. I have enormous shoes to fill. RADM John Babb, who served as the previous OFRD Director, is a man of spotless integrity, selfless devotion to the service of this Nation, proven ability, and a well-trained mind – made all the more impressive by his exemplary humility. No doubt, I will be consulting him often as I attempt to build upon what he so expertly created. The Corps, the Department, and the Nation are better off because of RADM Babb. I am particularly aware of the critical period in the Corps’ history in which OFRD engages in this work—a post-9/11 and post-Katrina era during which the Corps has been called upon, under Secretary Leavitt’s guidance and direction, to undergo a major transformation. As a part of this transformation, Secretary Leavitt has made increasing the operational capacity of the Corps a high priority and has made the Corps’ renewal one of his top priorities for the remainder of his term in office. Officers and civilians throughout the Department, with the support of all the Agencies in which Commissioned Officers are assigned, continue to work tirelessly to make the Corps better able to respond to a wide variety of public health emergencies. OFRD and its excellent staff will continue to play a vital role in ensuring that you, the human assets brought to bear during public health emergencies, are trained, rostered, deployed and supported in the best possible ways, and that this takes place with minimal disruption to agency-specific missions. While carrying out my responsibilities in OFRD, I will also continue in my role as Chief Medical Officer of the U.S. Public Health Service. In carrying out all my duties I will need the support, insight and creative ideas of all of you, the officers of the Commissioned Corps. I welcome your advice and counsel. Please feel free to contact me for any reason at david.rutstein@hhs.gov or by telephone at 301.443.6588. All the best, David Rutstein, MD, MPH Colleagues: As we approach the end of calendar year 2007, I want to briefly update you as to the status of the medical category of the U.S. Public Health Service's Commissioned Corps. Today, 28 December 2007, there are 1,010 medical officers in the Corps, which represents 16.85% of all the officers (5,993) on active duty. We are the second largest of the 11 categories of the Corps. The medical category remains vital to the Corps. We are distributed throughout 11 different Agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and in another 6 Departments/Organizations outside HHS. We are engaged in the delivery of clinical care; disease surveillance and prevention; regulatory work; research; policy development; health care and/or project administration; in combinations of some or all of these; and, in public health emergency deployment (on response teams or as individuals), where physician participation is required for the provision of clinical and non-clinical services. Our ranks are distributed as follows: 37 Lieutenants; 190 Lieutenant Commanders; 253 Commanders; 504 Captains; 16 Rear Admirals (Lower) and 10 Rear Admirals (Upper). Regardless of rank or discipline, we occupy an inordinate
number of the leadership positions within HHS and non-HHS agencies at
which medical officers are assigned. We occupy many of the senior leadership
positions of the Corps. However, over the past several years we have
seen a gradual but steady decrease in the number of medical officers
within the Corps, amounting to a net loss of approximately 50 medical
officers per year. This past year we have seen physicians assume senior Corps' leadership posts, including: * the appointment of Donald Wright, MD, MPH as the Acting
Assistant Secretary for Health I am confident that the current set of skilled and dedicated leaders will facilitate the continued growth of the Corps. Secretary Leavitt challenged the Corps to reach 6,600
officers by January 2009. To do this, a special recruiting focus has
been placed on 4 categories within the Corps: Medical, Dental, Nursing,
and Pharmacy. With the conclusion of this calendar year, the Chairmanship of the Physician Professional Advisory Committee (PPAC) will change. CAPT Jeffrey Kopp will be stepping down after a truly stellar year of PPAC leadership. During his tenure, CAPT Kopp distinguished himself as a gifted and passionate advocate for the breadth of medical officers within the category. His establishment of the Medical Officer Web Portal and drafting and distribution of regular and informative PPAC newsletters served to significantly increase the communication with and between Commissioned Corps physicians, regardless of their programmatic or geographic assignment. In addition to conducting regular PPAC meetings, CAPT Kopp also personally represented the medical category on the Discipline and Retention WIPT, participated on various WPDG conference calls during the year, and he attended, contributed to, recorded and summarized for the category the combined monthly meetings of the SGPAC/CPO Board and PPAC Chairs. And, perhaps his final crowning achievement this year on behalf of the category was his shepherding of the medical special pay White Paper I referenced earlier. We are a better category and Corps because of CAPT Kopp's diligence and commitment to a spirit of service this past year, and we all are deeply indebted to him. CDR Narayan Nair will assume the PPAC Chairmanship during calendar year 2008. CDR Nair is an exemplary physician and a dedicated public servant. I have no doubt that CDR Nair will guide the PPAC with aplomb, and in his characteristically understated way, will be invaluable to the PPAC and to the entire medical category. Please give CDR Nair all your support as he takes on the sizable responsibility of leading the PPAC. Medical officers wishing greater involvement in PPAC activities, or seeking information about the Corps' medical category should visit the excellent PPAC web site at http://usphs-ppac.org. Having completed 2 ½ years of my 4-year term as your Chief Professional Officer, I am convinced more than ever of the collective value you bring to the country as public health physicians. I repeatedly learn of the outstanding achievements, the innovative discoveries and the heroic actions made by medical officers of the Commissioned Corps and I am continually amazed by the skill, intelligence and passion for service evinced by you, my colleagues. I am proud to serve with each and every one of you. Please accept my best wishes for a joyous Holiday season and happy New Year as we work together to protect, promote, and advance the health and safety of our Nation. Sincerely, RADM David Rutstein |
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| Last Updated:
October 9, 2008 Contact Web Master: CAPT Judith L. Bader, MD, USPHS |