Commissioned Corps Bulletin

1 Commissioned CorpsBULLETIND ivision of Commissioned Personnel Program support center , DHHSP ublished as part of the Commissioned Corps Personnel Manual for Public Health Service CommissionedCorps officers. Forward news of Service-wide or special interest to Division of Commissioned Personnel,Room 4-04, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857-0001, Phone: 301-594-3462, E-mail: DCP/PSCRADM R. Michael DavidsonEditor, Mrs. Virginia KapusnickCommissioned CorpsBULLETINVol. XVI, No. 4 April 2002 Surgeon General's ColumnLast month, in support of SecretaryThompson s Workplace Initiative to In-crease Organ and Tissue Donation, I trav-eled to Cincinnati for an evening to arrive in the late morn-ing, I had the opportunity to visit the of-fices of the National Institute for Occu-pational Safety and Health (NIOSH) andmeet with staff working there, includingthe 70 Commissioned officers assigned was an especially moving visit, sinceI had spent a lot of time with several ofthese individuals, civilian as well as com-missioned Corps , during the anthrax cri-sis in mid-October.

2 These dedicated andcommitted individuals were part of themany who bravely put themselves inharm s way, to protect and advance thehealth and safety of our Nation. Whetherin Washington, , dealing with an un-familiar organism, in an unfamiliar ap-plication, or in New York City, in themidst of the residual dust after the WorldTrade center attack, or in many otherlocations throughout the United States,these officers and civilians provided theirscience and skills to help in respondingto these new threats to health and safety,and in providing reassurance to theAmerican was both humbling and hearteningto meet with them; and I applaud themfor their efforts and their passion for my column last month, I outlinedthe progress and the products of the Of-fice of the Surgeon General over the pastfew years.

3 I also stated that as ActingSurgeon General, I planned to maintainIN THIS ISSUE ..Licensure Policy in Survivor Benefits ofThose Officers Who Die on ActiveDuty ..3 COER Changes Coming Soon! ..3 COTA momentum these past few years havegenerated. To accomplish this, as a faith-ful steward of this office until a full-timeSurgeon General is nominated and con-firmed, I solicit your input and commentsas well as your focus on one timely issue, you willreceive this issue of the CommissionedCorps Bulletin in April, which is NationalOrgan and Tissue Donor AwarenessMonth. Since he first became Governor ofWisconsin, Secretary Thompson has beena fervent supporter and advocate for in-creasing awareness of organ, tissue,blood, and marrow donation.

4 I, too, forprofessional as well as personal reasons,am an unwavering supporter of this Giftof me share with you some alarmingstatistics about organ donation 80,000 people in the UnitedStates alone are awaiting a year, only 23,000 individuals werefortunate to receive this life giving, lifeenhancing 2000, there were 5,600 individualswho gave their organs for transplanta-tion when they died. Each individual do-nor could help as many as six recipientsof solid organs alone. We estimate thatthere are nearly 15,000 people who couldbe donors annually. This means that onlyone in three potential donors, actuallydid give the gift of day, 15 people die waiting over5,000 a year.

5 And the only reason theydie, the only reason they do not get atransplant, is because there were notenough organs to enough individuals are aware oftheir choice to be donors, not enough in-dividuals choose to give the gift of life ontheir encourage all members of the com-missioned Corps , and their families, todiscuss this life or death issue, to realizethat each of us has a choice to become anorgan and tissue donor; that if we decideto become donors, it is as important toshare that decision with our families andnext of kin. Many of us already are do-nors of blood. It is a natural extension toconsider marrow, tissue, and organ dona-tion. It is also part of helping to improvethe public s health, while we live, andeven after we April, I will be carrying this messageof Life to our Regional Offices in Chicagoand in Kansas City.

6 In Atlanta, at the Com-missioned Officers Association s ScientificMeeting, there will be a session on organand tissue donation. Please consider thismessage for yourselves and your familiesas Kenneth MoritsuguActing Surgeon General Page 2 Commissioned Corps BulletinVol. XVI, No. 4 April 2002 Secretary Thompson Thanks '9/11' Rescue Workers andOutlines Total Department of Health and HumanServices (HHS) Assistance DeliveredPress Release Dated March 11, 2002 HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompsontoday thanked some 2,000 HHS-sup-ported rescue workers and public healthprofessionals who responded to the ter-rorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Ofthe total, 1,364 were volunteer healthand mortuary professionals who providedtheir services as part of the Nation sNational Disaster Medical System(NDMS).

7 More than 600 others were healthprofessionals from HHS CommissionedCorps Readiness Force and the Centers forDisease Control and will complete its rescue-relatedwork at the World Trade center site inNew York City this month. These men and women worked hun-dreds of thousands of hours, respondingto the needs of thousands of New YorkCity residents and rescue personnel, Secretary Thompson said. They lefthome for weeks at a time to help those inneed. They exemplify the compassion andundaunted spirit of our great country. The NDMS includes teams around thecountry that can be brought togetherquickly and deployed in of the teams are volunteers. Inresponding to New York s needs, person-nel from 63 different response teamswere deployed, including members fromall 10 mortuary teams in the NDMS,members from all 4 veterinary units inthe NDMS, and members from 5 of the 6 Burn support '9/11' response in New York consti-tuted the largest NDMS deployment ever: Disaster Medical Assistance Teams(DMATs) aided over 9,500 rescue workerswith injuries ranging from broken bonesto eye and skin irritation to heart Health experts conferred with6,100 Federal responders at Ground Zero.

8 Disaster Mortuary Operational ResponseTeams (DMORTs) supported the New YorkCity Medical Examiner s office, process-ing 15,528 human specimens, 270 bodies,and identifying 750 victims. Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams(VMATs) received more than 900 ca-nine visits mainly for exhaustion, de-hydration, and sore September 11, within minutes of theattacks on the World Trade center , Secre-tary Thompson had declared a nationalhealth emergency making the NDMS andcommissioned Corps ready for Office of Emergency Preparednessmade immediate deployments, and some50 tons of backup medical supplies werealso provided to New York that subsequent weeks, HHS also re-sponded to the Nation s first anthraxmail attacks.

9 HHS helped provide theneeded antibiotics for those potentiallyexposed, and HHS personnel helped dis-pense the drugs to thousands of peoplein New York and Washington, then, dramatic new steps havebeen taken to increase preparedness forbioterrorism, including creation of a newHHS Office of Public Health Prepared-ness, procurement of more than a billiondoses of antibiotics and 155 million dosesof smallpox vaccine, expansion of the Na-tional Pharmaceutical Stockpile, and ini-tial new funding of $ billion for Statesto help them better prepare forbioterrorism is funding a total of $301 millionin response and recovery activities as aresult of the September 11 attacks.

10 If policy requires that you maintain acurrent valid license as a Public HealthService (PHS) Commissioned Corpshealthcare provider, you are required todo the following when your license re-newal a photocopy of your license /certification / registration renewal(must contain an expiration date)upon receipt from the issuing au-thority; your PHS CommissionedCorps serial number in the lowerright-hand corner of the photocopy; (or fax) it to:Division of Commissioned PersonnelATTN: Licensure Project Officer /OSB5600 Fishers Lane, Room 4-20 Rockville, MD 20857-0001 Fax:301-443-5366 or 301-594-2711 Phone:301-594-3352(or toll-free at 1-877-INFO DCP, lis-ten to the prompts, select option #1,and dial the last 5 digits of the phonenumber 43352)IMPORTANT You May No Longer Bein Compliance with the PHS Licen-sure Policy!