Joel Schofer's Career Planning Blog

Message from the New Medical Corps Chief and Detailing Update

Posted on February 11, 2025 Updated on February 8, 2025

Medical Corps Officers,

Good morning and happy Friday! Below is a message from our new Medical Corps Chief RDML Kevin Brown. RDML Brown’s bio is available at https://www.navy.mil/Leadership/Flag-Officer-Biographies/BioDisplay/Article/3848460/rear-admiral-kevin-j-brown/

I’m honored to serve as your 15th Medical Corps Chief. I thank RDML Valdes for his 3 years of leadership as our Chief, and his dedication to the professional health and well-being of our Navy physicians.  My priority is to build on the foundation and successes RDML Valdes established as we continue to improve the health of our Corps. Having just returned from the Surgeon General’s quarterly FOSESFOR (Flag Officer / Senior Executive Service / Force Master Chief) symposium, I am confident that the considerable investment in the Medical Corps is beginning to pay dividends, but we still have much work to do.

Recruit – We will continue to identify and prioritize successful recruitment initiatives to attract the most talented physicians to the Navy. Rebounding from two lean years, FY24 saw a return to historic norms for medical student recruiting. In partnership with RADM Waters at Navy Recruiting Command, we’ve increased our medical student goals for FY25 and added aggressive direct accessions goals to accelerate the Medical Corps recovery. The best recruiters of future Navy doctors are current Navy doctors. We must leverage our physicians’ vast expertise and experience to energize the next generation of leaders and ensure the continuous preservation of the Navy Medical Corps pipeline.

Train – Graduate Medical Education and Force Development remain a priority. We will continue to increase training opportunities for developing initial competency while exploring effective and alternative models for currency and skill sustainment. Just as our operations doctrine has adjusted to the pacing threat, our medical force development must evolve to ensure Navy physicians’ ability to render care in any situation, under all operational conditions, is never compromised.

Retain – The health of our Medical Corps, and Navy Medicine’s ability to meet its mission, hinges on keeping physicians in the Navy. The foundation of any successful team is trust. Frankly, decisions made after the end of the Global War on Terror eroded physician trust within our team. We must re-establish that trust. By enhancing career progression, promotion opportunities, clinical and operational experiences, and initiatives designed to improve our Quality of Service, Navy physician professional gratification will improve. Starting with addressing civilian-military pay gaps, we will systematically remove doubt that the Navy is the premier physician employer in the United States.

Consider this a call to action.  Get involved.  Be part of the solution.  I’m excited by our initiatives to improve the experience of naval service for our physicians and unequivocally demonstrate the value of continued service, but success requires effort from each of you.  Working together, I have no doubt we will establish and sustain the prominence of our Medical Corps

Kevin

We also want to take this opportunity to address potential changes in how our officers experience the detailing process.

Changes in PERS-4415 engagement with Medical Corps Officers – This is not a policy change. The detailing process and the specialty leader-detailer relationship is unchanged. Specialty leaders make recommendations; detailers issue orders. Our detailers (PERS-4415) have always had the final say in MC officer assignments. Because physician careers are different than line officers, the Medical Corps has specialty leaders assigned to each specialty to ensure specialty-specific considerations are incorporated into physician detailing decisions. The line does not have specialty leaders. MC specialty leaders have traditionally been the ones who have in-depth conversations with individual MC officers within their communities IRT career progression and next assignments. This will still occur. However, BUPERS has instructed our MC detailers to play a larger role in these discussions similar to the way line communities (and the other health services support officer Corps) are handled. The net result is MC officers will likely have these detailed conversations with both our specialty leaders and our detailers before they meet to make final assignment determinations.

v/r,

John J. Devlin, MD, FAACT, FACEP

CAPT / MC / USN

Deputy Chief, Navy Medical Corps

Office of the Corps Chiefs (N01C),

Bureau of Medicine & Surgery (BUMED)