Photo By Robert Hammer | U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. John Andrus, U.S. Joint Staff Surgeon, participates in open...... read more read more
Air Force Brig. Gen. (Dr.) John R. Andrus recently served as the Joint Staff Surgeon, culminating a 37-year career in military health. Like his predecessors, he brought deep experience and insight to advise top leadership within the Department of Defense on all matters concerning military health care -- family medicine, operational readiness, and warfighter health — at home, in theater, and in space.
He held the role as the top military medical advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since June 2023, and this summer turned the reigns over to the current JSS, Army Brig. Gen. Clinton K. Murray.
Andrus sat down with MHS News to talk about the role of the JSS and how his career prepared him for that work. He officially retires from military service on Sept. 1, 2025.
He said it’s vital for his role to understand the Military Health System from “the joint force perspective, because what the chairman is interested in is how prepared the MHS is to support the joint force.”
As JSS, he’s not only the senior medical advisor to the Chairman and the Joint Staff, but also the combatant commanders. The work stems across the entire DOD, to include collaborating with the service surgeons general and the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.
After graduating from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1993, Andrus has supported a wide spectrum of military medical missions around the world.
After completing his residency in family medicine at David Grant USAF Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base, his first assignment was overseas in the Azores. Andrus called it “a blessing of going to USU, because they wanted people with military experience before they sent them overseas, particularly to a remote area.” His team served 3,000 service members and their families, with just four family practice physicians. “It was rural medicine at its best,” Andrus said. It was there that he knew he wanted to be a military flight surgeon.
He attended flight surgeon school at Brooks City-Base in Texas and got his first flight surgeon assignment at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. He spent three years there supporting the medical group and flying air medical evacuation missions with the 76th Airlift Squadron, a C-9 squadron. He also flew with the 37th Airlift Squadron, a C-130 squadron.
During this phase of his decorated career, he served as a NASA flight surgeon, leading DOD support to NASA. When the space shuttle would launch, his team would send an airplane to the designated transatlantic landing site and stand watch, prepared to provide medical support — setting up a small hospital in the back of a C-130 and waiting with pararescuemen. If needed, the pararescuemen would conduct the rescue mission, and Andrus’ team would cover medical evacuation, working together as a team. “We had to be trained and prepared to take the astronauts out of their spacesuits, evaluate them, and then get them back to CONUS,” he said of the role.
A soundtrack to these missions was the radio traffic between Houston and the astronauts, listening for their greeting on their way up to space reassured his medical evacuation team was there. When the space crew reported that they made their orbit — which took only a few seconds — his team would tear down, get back on the airplane, and fly back to Ramstein.
While serving as chief of aerospace medicine at the 62nd Medical Group at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, he got orders to his first joint assignment at United States Africa Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, as the deputy surgeon general. This led to his next joint assignment at United States Transportation Command as the command surgeon.
His keen ability to collaborate across services and invaluable experience in warfighter health care paved the way for him to serve as the JSS.
During his final interview in uniform, Andrus shared his insights of how the JSS helps ensure high-quality health care is delivered to warfighters who are being asked to complete missions circling the Earth, around the globe, or at home — in his words, “wherever they may be.”
Question: What is the role of the Joint Staff Surgeon?
Andrus: What's contained in that role is a need to understand the MHS. If I'm offering recommendations to the chairman as he formulates his advice to the Secretary of Defense, I need to have a good understanding. I need to be able to scan the MHS and understand from the joint force perspective, because what the chairman is interested in is how prepared is the MHS to support the joint force. The chairman is being asked to support a mission by the President for a reason: If an action needs to be taken somewhere around the globe to create an effect, we have military forces across multiple services designed to do certain things that in a combined effort are intended to accomplish certain objectives. For that to occur, there needs to be medical support to those forces as they're preparing to deploy or provide support to other missions. There also needs to be support forward to make sure they remain healthy and that they're able to perform at their peak performance level. If things go wrong, patients can be recovered, treated, and then put back in the system right.
The MHS has one mission: To care for our service members.
Question: Talk about how you work with the chairman, the Joint Staff, the combatant commanders, the service surgeons general, and the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.
Andrus: My role is to collaborate with them. I sit at the table. What's important to note is that at that table, all voices should be equal. And the joint voice at that table is particularly unique because it brings a perspective looking across the entire health system. The service surgeons general bring incredibly valuable, organized voices to the table that are service-specific, so we understand the service equities. I have my own voice from an operational side and then from a joint side, we try to align those activities to what's required. I represent the mission.
My role with Health Affairs is to make sure that we're collaborative. Dr. Stephen Ferrara (acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs) has a very significant role as the resource manager for the defense health program funding. The chairman's voice also comes across to the secretary (of defense) in terms of resourcing as well. So, you've got two voices that are coming from two different points in the organization. It’s a unit. I have an independent voice representing the chairman and representing, most importantly, the joint force. That collaboration is critical to make sure that we are aligned.
Question: Describe the Joint Staff Surgeon’s role in navigating changes in the MHS.
Andrus: The MHS itself has gone from a service-centric entity to a much more joint-oriented entity. You have to know what you're doing and how all the parts work together. You have to know how to engage in the system. People don't realize how large the MHS is. About a year ago, I talked to the chairman about some of the core challenges in the MHS -- what were some gaps, perhaps in our preparedness to do the things we might be asked to do, right from an operational perspective.
When I arrived, the Defense Health Agency was only a year into having administrative authority, direction control over the MTFs (military hospitals and clinics), which was hard to overestimate how much tectonic change that meant for the system. We asked, “What are the impacts of that change?”
There was a change in the structure and now in new realignment of responsibilities and authorities. We analyzed if the resources aligned to those new responsibilities, asking, “What's at the root of some of the challenges that we're trying to overcome?”
Question: What are the next steps to address challenges with the MHS?
Andrus: We have been working the capability portfolio management review now for coming up on a year, and we've had some incredible insights that have come out of it —not just from trying to solve the surface problem but understanding what's underlying and really getting after the systemic issues that need to be resolved to move forward.
We're going to ask for permission to go back and reassess our joint capability areas as a foundational element to build and define capability portfolios across the entire military medical mission. We have to remember the mission is taking care of service members. The mission is measured by the combat effectiveness of the units we support. We have to broaden that definition to include our partners that can provide the services with medics that are trained, equipped, and ready to go.
Question: What do you envision for the future of the MHS?
Andrus: We’re at a point in time right now where we have an opportunity to really advance the MHS. If somebody asks me, “What's the one thing that we should do?” I say, “To improve the MHS.” We can be too focused on differences. We need to be more focused on where there’s alignment and build on that alignment. Each leader needs to recommit themselves to leaning in and working together. That means that we need to understand the mission from the same sight picture, and we need to lean into that mission and allow individual opinions, desires, and preferences to go by the wayside as we figure out the most effective way to get the mission done: To support the warfighter.
Andrus leaves behind a legacy of dedication to warfighter and family health, a core focus on resiliency of the joint force, and an encouragement to continue what the MHS strives for: working together to improve the health of all those entrusted to its care.
“As we collaborate and coordinate to understand each other, we have to come together on areas where it makes sense,” he said. “Then, we are more effective to help the MHS move forward.”
| Date Taken: | 08.27.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.27.2025 15:51 |
| Story ID: | 546684 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 73 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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