Reservist picked to be new DoD top doctor - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Reservist picked to be new DoD top doctor

President Obama has finally named his choice as the Pentagon’s top doctor.

The nominee is Jonathan Woodson, currently an associate professor of surgery and associate dean at Boston University School of Medicine. If confirmed by the Senate, Woodson, also a senior attending vascular surgeon at the Boston Medical Center, would replace S. Ward Casscells, who was appointed to the job in the wake of the 2007 Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal and left the Pentagon in April 2009.

Filling the job for the past year has been trauma and critical care specialist Charles Rice, president of Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., the nation’s federal health sciences university.

In addition to his duties in Boston, Woodson also serves as an adjunct assistant professor of surgery at USUHS and is an Army Reserve brigadier general. He is currently assigned as the assistant surgeon general for reserve affairs, force structure and mobilization in the Office of the Army Surgeon General, and also serves as deputy commander of the Army Reserve Medical Command. He has deployed to Central America, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As senior medical officer for trauma on the International Surgical and Medical Response Team East, a cooperative effort of the National Disaster Management System and U.S. State Department, Woodson also responded to the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York City.

The assistant secretary of defense for health affairs is the principal adviser to the secretary of defense on health issues and oversees the entire U.S. military medical enterprise, known as the Military Health System, and its $50 billion budget. This includes the services’ care of war wounded and basic health care for 9.6 million active and retired service members and family members through the Tricare medical and dental care program.

This official also sets medical health standards for enlistments and deployments, develops health and medical program policies, and oversees USUHS, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and other organizations.