US Army
MAJ Maggie Gallagher
The Army continues to grow its Excelsior membership and build connections and relationships across all military services. We continue to leverage all avenues to encourage and promote military-civilian partnerships and agreements. Our consultant group continues to work hard on improving our lives as Army surgeons by addressing not only partnerships but our deployment tempo, military pay, operative volume, training experiences, etc. We continue to encourage young surgeons to become involved with the Excelsior Surgical Society and to stay active in academic surgery.
Army surgeons also play an important role in the broader surgical community by being committee members and holding leadership positions in various national organizations including the ACS. Please encourage your surgical colleagues to join the Excelsior Surgical Society –working together as an organization and a team, we can continue to impact change from every angle.
US Navy
CDR Tamara Worlton
The US Navy continues to support military-civilian partnerships with new teams at Cook County and the University of Pennsylvania with a plan to expand these opportunities in the future. Deployment tempo remains steady with both hospital ships planning missions in 2022. We are all looking forward to an in-person meeting this October and are committed to supporting the Excelsior Surgery Society.
US Air Force
Col Scott Zakaluzny
The Air Force continues to keep its eyes focused on readiness as it pertains to surgical care. The goal will persistently be to assure that surgeons are prepared by maximizing their opportunities to practice their craft. Leveraging military-civilian partnerships to augment Military Treatment Facility activities is key to achieving this goal and ensures surgeons are caring for a high volume of high acuity patients and the retention of experienced surgeons.
Reserve/National Guard
CDR Jacob Glaser
The Navy Reserve Medical component continues to undergo restructuring to align with the Chief of the Navy Reserves (CNR) fighting instructions and to best support the warfighter. Specifically, these include the core concepts of ‘Design, Train and Mobilize the Force’ with the additional focus on ‘Develop the Force.’ Critical to this guidance continues to be the maintenance of critical wartime readiness and capability, including maintenance of surgical skills, and focus on expeditionary capability. Engagement and partnership with active duty and civilian surgical leaders remain key components to guiding the way forward.
Civilian
COL (R) Carey Hill
It is an exciting time for military medicine as the Mission Zero grant program has now received funding in response to the Mission Zero Act that was signed into law in 2019. Allocating funds for military unit training and individual provider training at civilian trauma centers will help maintain much-needed skill sets for military surgical teams and benefit our nation's Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, and Airmen. As these partnerships are developed it is important to ensure patient safety while balancing the risk-benefit of training military providers in civilian institutions. Military and civilian leaders involved in these partnerships must continue striving to ensure patient safety and the provision of high-quality care.
Resident/Fellow
CPT Kal Gunashingha
Hello! I am honored to have served as your Resident/Fellow Councilperson at Large. This year, we have continued to expand our social media presence. While we highlighted residents' and junior faculty accomplishments on Twitter (@excelsiorsurg), we also expanded our social media presence with our new LinkedIn page. This professional platform allows us to connect to our membership and keep them informed of military surgery updates and our monthly webinars. We have also started the process of reaching out to the Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP) medical students from all of the Services and connecting them to potential mentors within ESS. My goal continues to be to add more medical students and surgical residents to ESS membership as it is a great place to find mentorship and understand the mission of military surgery.
