The Medical Corps (MC) of the United States Army is a staff corps (non-combat specialty branch) of the U.S. Army Medical Department (AMEDD) consisting of commissioned medical officers – physicians with either an M.D. or a D.O. degree, at least one year of post-graduate clinical training, and a state medical license.
The MC traces its earliest origins to the first physicians recruited by the Medical Department of the Army, created by the Second Continental Congress in 1775. The US Congress made official the designation "Medical Corps" in 1908, although the term had long been in use informally among the Medical Department's regular physicians.
Currently, the MC consists of over 4,400 active duty physicians representing all the specialties and subspecialties of civilian medicine. They may be assigned to fixed military medical facilities, to deployable combat units or to military medical research and development duties. They are considered fully deployable soldiers. The Chief of the Medical Corps Branch (under the Army's Human Resources Command) is a colonel and the senior-most Medical Corps officer in the Army is the U.S. Army surgeon general, a lieutenant general.
History
Origins Both the Army Medical Department and the Medical Corps trace their origins to 27 July 1775, when the Continental Congress established the first Army Hospital to be headed by a "Director General and Chief Physician". The language of the Congressional resolution spoke of "an Hospital" which in those days meant a hospital system or medical department. Among the accomplishments of Army surgeons during the years of the Revolution was completion (in 1778, at Lititz, Pennsylvania) of the first pharmacopoeia printed in America. In 1789, the Department of the Hospital was disbanded and a system of "Regimental Surgeons" was established in its place.
19th century
During the period that followed (1789–1818) Congress provided for a medical organization for the Army only in time of war or emergency. For example, in 1812 Congress established the Medical Department of the Northern Army as a response to the need for medical support during operations in the War of 1812. In 1816, medical officers were given uniforms (but not military rank) for the first time. A permanent and continuous Medical Department was not established until 1818. That year a "Surgeon General" was appointed (Joseph Lovell, the first to hold that specific title) and since then a succession of Surgeons General and a permanent Corps organization in the Army Medical Department have followed. Physicians assigned to the U.S. Army were finally accorded military rank in 1847, although the old Regimental Surgeon system of additional designations ("Assistant Surgeon", "Surgeon") was also retained until 1908.
In 1862, Surgeon General William Alexander Hammond proposed establishment of an "Army Medical School" in which medical cadets and others seeking admission to the MC could receive such post-graduate instruction as would better fit them for military commissions. It was over 30 years, however, before Surgeon General George M. Sternberg would found (1893) the Army Medical School (AMS), the precursor institution to today's Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
20th century Congress made official the designation "Medical Corps" in 1908, although the term had long been in use informally among the Medical Department's regular physicians.
World War I brought a realization of the need to provide more than the "finishing school" approach of the AMS to military medical education and indoctrination and in 1920, the Medical Department first established hospital internships as a method of acquiring new officers for the MC. Meanwhile, part of the role of the AMS (which would become part of the Army Medical Center in 1923) was taken over by the new Medical Field Service School which opened at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania in 1921. Its purpose was to train both new medical officers and newly enlisted medics in the practice of field medicine. (This school was transferred to Texas in 1946, became the Academy of Health Sciences in 1973, and became the AMEDD Center & School in 1991).
The first woman to receive a Regular Army commission in the MC was Major Margaret D. Craighill in 1943. She was assigned as Chief Surgeon to the Women's Army Corps. In 1946, Army residency programs for MC officers were introduced into the Medical Department, providing for the first time the full spectrum of graduate medical education (GME) to prospective MC officers. In 1954, a prominent thoracic surgeon and Harvard graduate, Frank Berry, was appointed as the second Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs). Upon assuming office one of his first acts was to propose a plan for young military physicians to follow one of three pathways after completing their internship: Enter the armed services immediately and return to their residencies after fulfilling their obligated service; Enter the armed services two years after medical school and complete their residencies after service; Enter the service after the completion of residency training. The "Berry Plan"Officially, the Armed Forces Physicians' Appointment And Residency Consideration Program deferred doctors who were taking their residency, so that the Army would get the benefit of their advanced education. Eventually, GME became both a recruiting and a retention tool for the AMEDD, and board-certified specialists were attracted in steady numbers. Those MC officers who did not elect Option 1, or who were not needed immediately, were "deferred." Some were allowed Option 3, to complete their residency training and then entered active duty as a fully trained specialist. Those who were deferred for only one year of residency were termed "partially trained specialists" and were usually given military assignments that allowed them to work within their specialty. Many residency programs would give a year's credit toward completion of residency for their time in military service to physicians who served under Option 2. (This triple option program continued for 19 years until the US military draft ended in 1973.)
During the Vietnam era, serious physician shortfalls were experienced by the Defense Department and it was at this time (1966) that osteopathic physicians, who had previously been excluded from active military service, were first admitted to the MC. To avoid reinstating another "doctor draft", the US Congress took steps to encourage medical students to enter the military as physicians. Completing this trend, medical school training has been provided for military students since the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) was established in 1972, graduating its first class in 1980. USUHS is the United States' center for military medical education. Its primary mission is to prepare its graduates for service in the medical corps of all the uniformed services of the country. Eventually, USUHS graduates made up about 25% of all doctors in the military. (Now it graduates about 164 physicians each year; around 90% of all USUHS graduates remain on active duty until reaching retirement eligibility.) By the mid-1990s, the strength of the Army's MC had risen to about 5,400 active duty officers, but cutbacks soon ensued.
21st century As of mid-2008, the number of active duty doctors serving in the MC nearly met the requirement of 4,448 authorized positions. Primary care specialties represented the greatest shortfall in endstrength numbers.Medical Operational Data System (MODS), "AMEDD Deployment Data"; Available from http://www.mods.army.mil/
Career management As with all Army officers, the military occupational specialty (MOS) classification system provides the MC officer with his/her officer branch, area of concentration (AOC), branch skill code (degree of proficiency), special qualifications identifiers (SQIs), additional skill identifiers (ASIs), language identification, and reporting classifications.Headquarters, Department of the Army, Department of the Army Pamphlet 611–2, "Military Occupational Classification and Structure" ; Washington, DC (31 March 1999). The MC is one of the Special Branches of the Army, and thus is not classified as a Basic Branch. Special Branches are a grouping of branches and officers primarily concerned with providing combat service support and/or administration to the Army as a whole, but managed separately from USAHRC combat service support branches. (Other Special Branches are the Army Chaplains and the Judge Advocate General.)
Entry The most common source of new physicians for the Army are medical students attending civilian medical schools and participating in the Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP). By so participating they have their expenses paid for them and incur a four-year service obligation. A smaller number graduate from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland and serve on active duty (as second lieutenants) while students, incurring a seven-year obligation. Some MC officers are accessed via direct commission after completion of specialty or sub-specialty training before entry on active duty.
US Army MC specialties The MC consists of 41 areas of concentration (AOC) within officer branches 60, 61 and 62. A young MC officer typically starts out as a general medical officer (AOC 62B) following completion of the first year of graduate medical education (GME).Malish, Richard Glade (2009), The United States Army Battalion Surgeon: Frontline Requirement or Relic of a Bygone Era? A thesis presented to the Faculty of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Military Art and Science, General Studies , U.S. Army: Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. They may later specialize following completion of residency training in a military (or less often, civilian) program. Later, these physicians may continue with subspecialty training or continue in operational positions providing clinical care, conducting research, or in other positions.Department of the Army Pamphlet 600–4, "Army Medical Department Officer Development and Career Management" Washington, DC (27 June 2007), pg 45.
The 41 AOC identifiers for the US Army MC are:
60A Operational Medicine 60B Nuclear Medicine Officer 60C Preventive Medicine Officer 60D Occupational Medicine Officer 60F Pulmonary Disease/Critical Care Officer 60G Gastroenterologist 60H Cardiologist 60J Obstetrician and Gynecologist 60K Urologist 60L Dermatologist 60M Allergist, Clinical Immunologist
60N Anesthesiologist 60P Pediatrician 60Q Pediatric Sub-Specialist 60R Child Neurologist 60S Ophthalmologist 60T Otolaryngologist 60U Child Psychiatrist 60V Neurologist 60W Psychiatrist 61A Nephrologist
61B Medical Oncologist/Hematologist 61C Endocrinologist 61D Rheumatologist 61E Clinical Pharmacologist 61F Internist 61G Infectious disease Officer 61H Family Medicine 61J General Surgeon 61K Thoracic Surgeon 61L Plastic Surgeon
61M Orthopedic Surgeon 61N Flight Surgeon/Aerospace medicine specialist 61P Physiatrist 61Q Radiation Oncologist 61R Diagnostic Radiologist 61U Pathologist 61W Peripheral Vascular Surgeon 61Z Neurosurgeon 62A Emergency Physician 62B Field Surgeon/Battalion Surgeon/General Medical Officer
The branch skill codes ("degree of proficiency" designators) for the US Army MC are:DA PAM 600–4, 27 June 2007, pg 47. Medical proficiency 9A—Determination is on a basis of individual merit by TSG's Classification Board. Medical proficiency 9B—Certification by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) in a particular specialty or subspecialty. Medical proficiency 9C—Completion of formal subspecialty training to meet the ABMS requirement of an approved residency or fellowship in a recognized teaching center.