Photo By Jerome Mapp | (front row, left to right) Dr. Brian Lein, assistant director of healthcare...... read more read more
FORT BRAGG, N.C. – For the first time in more than 40 years, Womack Army Medical Center (WAMC) celebrated the addition of two new residency programs--internal medicine and general surgery-- during a June 30 ribbon-cutting ceremony on the eastern side of the facility at the Riley Road entrance.
“Today’s celebration marks over five years’ worth of work by an extremely dedicated team, culminating in the first new internal medicine and general surgery residency programs within the military health care system [at WAMC] in over forty-two years,” said Col. Lisa Foglia, WAMC’s GME director, who served as master of ceremonies. Col. Christopher Jarvis, WAMC’s commanding officer, served as the event host.
Guest speakers at the event included Maj. Gen. Telita Crosland, deputy Army Surgeon General, deputy commanding general of operations for the U.S. Army Medical Command, and chief of the Army Medical Corps; and Dr. Brian Lein, a retired major general, and currently assistant director for healthcare administration with the Defense Health Agency.
Crosland said that the steps leading to the establishment of two new residency programs began with an idea that transformed into a commitment.
“Today’s ribbon-cutting represents a commitment to providing the newest and most technologically advanced medical treatment facilities to the Department of Defense and Fort Bragg community,” Crosland said. “It underscores Army’s commitment to training our next generation of military physicians who took an oath to defend our constitution during a period of sustained conflict.”
Lein welcomed the newest healthcare providers to “…the profession of arms and the profession of medicine.”
“You have a critical calling and a unique opportunity. You’re going to be responsible for the health and wellness of the best that this nation has to offer,” Lein said. Nowhere is that more evident than here at Fort Bragg, the home of the 18th (Airborne) Corps, United States Army Special Operations Command, 82nd Airborne Division, Joint Special Operations Command, and other units that are immediate operations capable for our nation.”
Both guest speakers noted that the two latest residency programs are key components of Army medicine’s laser focus on readiness and ensuring a medical ready force that is postured to saving lives on the battlefield, while keeping Soldiers in the fight.
“As we celebrate the opening of the new programs, it is critical to acknowledge our existing family medicine residency and gynecologic surgery and obstetrics residency training programs,” Foglia said. “Without their track record of success, we would not have been able to expand our educational mission.”
Foglia said that upon the creation of new residency programs, it’s nearly impossible to conduct all the necessary training in one location.
“I want to thank our civilian partners to include the departments of medicine and surgery at UNC (University of North Carolina) Chapel Hill; surgery at Carolinas Medical Center; and geriatrics at the Fayetteville VA (Veterans Administration),” Foglia said. “Each of these sites will be hosting our new residents for clinical rotations and they add to our current regional partnerships with Cape Fear Valley Medical Center [in Fayetteville] and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and expand our partnership with the VA.”
The residency programs at WAMC were approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, a private, not-for-profit organization that sets standards for U.S. graduate medical education (residency and fellowship) programs and the institutions that sponsor them, and renders accreditation decisions based on compliance with these standards.
Residency programs in the Army likely owe their success to the late retired Maj. Gen. Raymond Bliss, the 28th Surgeon General of the Army, from 1947 to 1951. Under his watch, Army hospitals became training institutions for the first time in history by offering residency training programs to the career officer, according to Bliss’s Army biography.
In addition to WAMC, medical training facilities include Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas; Darnall Army Medical Center, Killeen, Texas; Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, Fort Belvoir, Va.; Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Augusta, Ga.; Keller Army Community Hospital, West Point, N.Y.; Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma, Wash.; Martin Army Community Hospital, Columbus, Ga.; Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii; Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md.; and William Beaumont Army Medical Center, El Paso, Texas.
For more information on the GME program, go to:
https://www.health.mil/Training-Center/Medical-Education-Directorate
| Date Taken: | 06.30.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 07.08.2021 13:16 |
| Story ID: | 400522 |
| Location: | FORT BRAGG, NC, US |
| Web Views: | 1,066 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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