USPHS Dentists

Welcome to the home of the Dental Category of the United States Public Health Service(USPHS). The USPHS is the major health component of the Federal Government and the world´s foremost authority on public health issues.

The USPHS is composed of approximately 6,000 Commissioned Corps Officers and 50,000 Civil Service employees. The USPHS Dental Category is comprised of over 600 Commissioned Corps and Civil Service dentists. As one the seven Uniformed Services of the United States, the USPHS Commissioned Corps is a specialized career system designed to attract, develop, and retain health professionals who may be assigned to Federal, State or local agencies or international organizations to accomplish its mission.

Call for 2011 COA Co-Coordinators

Officers interested in serving as the Coordinator or Co-Coordinator for the USPHS Dental Category at the annual public health conference sponsored by the Commissioned Officers Association of the USPHS should: (1) complete this application in its entirety; (2) submit their most recent Curriculum Vitae; (3) obtain concurrence/support from their immediate supervisor (see further instructions below); and (4) submit all information electronically (e-mail) to both CDR Phillip Woods, DePAC Chair, at PWoods@bop.gov and CDR Angie Roach, DePAC Vice-Chair, at ARoach@bop.gov by COB Friday, July 30, 2010. Click to download Application Form

ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE 2011 DePAC AWARDS NOMINATION CYCLE

The DePAC is pleased to announce the 2011 DePAC Awards Cycle. Nominations for the Dental Category awards are now being accepted. The DePAC requests that you nominate a fellow dentist in the USPHS, either Commissioned Corps or Civil Service. Please pass this information along to colleagues and to supervisors from all categories so they can recognize deserving candidates.

Detailed nomination information including application, checklist, and example narratives can be found on the Dental Professional Advisory Committee Awards webpage at: http://www.phs-dental.org/depac/awards.html

Important points to remember:

Deadline for submission is September 15, 2010
Submit early to ensure all documents have adequate review time
Maintain OFRD readiness status throughout the nomination process
Submit all documents electronically in Microsoft word rich text format
Supervisor's approval required (e-mail from supervisor with signature block)
If you have questions, contact Awards Workgroup Chair CAPT Darla Whitfield (Darla.Whitfield@dhs.gov).
Anyone can nominate! Recognize your colleagues!!!

Congratulations USPHS Dentists

Congratulatons to the following USPHS Dentists recognized with awards on Dental Category Day during the 2010 USPHS Scientific and Training Symposium held in San Diego, California.

Dental Category Day - May 25, 2010

Dental Professional Advisory Committee Awards
- LCDR Mahyar Mofidi - Ernest Eugene Buell Dental Award
- CAPT Suzanne Saville - Ruth Lashley Mid-Career Dental Award
- CAPT Christine Heng - Senior Clinician Dental Award
- CAPT Angel Rodriguez-Espada – Dental Responder of the Year Award (Co-Recipient)
- CAPT Arturo Bravo (Ret.) – Dental Responder of the Year Award (Co-Recipient)
- CAPT Bruce Dye - Hershel S. Horowitz Oral Health and Policy Award
- Dr. Jay Anderson - Jack D. Robertson Dental Award

Commissioned Corps Responder of the Year
- CAPT Dean Coppola

USPHS Special Assignment Award
- CAPT Renée Joskow
- CAPT Coleman Palmertree
- CAPT William Stenberg

Hispanic Officers Advisory Committee Award
- CAPT Angel Rodriguez-Espada – Juan Carlos Finlay Award

Please take time to congratulate and thank the recipients for their career dedication and exemplary service to the Dental Category

Need for Assistance: Pacific Partnership 2010 USNS MERCY Mission

Colleagues:

As you know, the USPHS Commissioned Corps has been specifically requested to participate, along with our uniformed colleagues in the Department of Defense (DOD), in two shipboard missions in 2010.

Pacific Partnership 2010 (PP10) is a U.S. Navy ship-based training mission scheduled to begin in May and run through August of 2010. PP10 will utilize the hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) which will conduct direct care and public health missions in the Western Pacific. Four USPHS officers have already participated in the pre-deployment site survey for this mission, contributing greatly to ongoing planning in collaboration with U.S. Navy, Marine, and Army personnel, civilian interagency partners as well as host nation professionals.

OFRD will be embarking roughly fifty officers per mission, divided amongst three rotations for PP10 and four rotations for CP10. Officers required for actual mission execution will include those from most categories across the Commissioned Corps.

Subsequent to the initial request for officers disseminated in early December 2009, OFRD has received numerous letters of interest from the Commissioned Corps leadership on behalf of officers and from individual officers themselves. As a result of the time that has since elapsed, the response efforts in Haiti following the devastating earthquake there, and other training activities that have since been developed and/or executed, the rostering of this mission remains incomplete. You are being specifically contacted as your skillsets are still needed on these missions.

-- Pacific Partnership 2010 (PP10) USNS Mercy --

Dates (Duration):       Team 1 – Guam: 19 May – Singapore 1 Jul (44 days)
Tentative               Team 2 – Singapore 4 Jul - Darwin 6 Aug (34 days)
                        Team 3 – Darwin 10 Aug - Guam 30 Aug (20 days)

Mission Locations:      Team 1 – Vietnam and Cambodia
                        Team 2 – Indonesia
                        Team 3 – Timor Leste

Requirements:
Officers must be Basic qualified, have no current or pending adverse actions, receive Supervisor/Agency concurrence, possess an official (maroon) U.S. passport, possess a government credit card, possess at least two sets of BDUs, and receive CPO concurrence (OFRD will obtain CPO concurrence). OFRD may be able to provide assistance in acquiring passports for qualified officers who do not currently have an official (maroon) U.S. passport; those without official government passports are encouraged to submit their names for consideration for these missions.

OFRD will cover the travel, lodging and per diem expenses for officers participating in these missions.
Please reply directly to LCDR Andrei Nabakowski in OFRD Global Operations at Andrei.Nabakowski@hhs.gov.
OFRD will soon again inform the entire Corps of these opportunities. OFRD will make the final decision regarding which officers will participate on these training deployments.

Thank you for your support of these inter-service, interagency health diplomacy missions.

Information available regarding billets training..
on behalf of Transformation Officer

As you are probably aware, the Commissioned Corps billets system is in the process of transformation. By late fall of this year (2009), an electronic process will be launched whereby all officers will be requested to initiate the creation of new billets for the positions they currently encumber. Two versions of the same tutorial (video and text) have been created to guide officers through this process. The video version takes less than 15 minutes to complete.

ALL COMMISSIONED CORPS OFFICERS ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO COMPLETE THE NEW BILLETS CREATION TUTORIAL LOCATED HERE: http://dcp.psc.gov/Billets_Tutorial.aspx

Additionally, there is a billets transformation Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page located here: http://www.usphs.gov/transformation/billet.aspx

If you do not have access to Microsoft Office (Excel) you should complete the video version of the tutorial. The text version requires you to be able to open an Excel spreadsheet within Excel. A similar tutorial will soon be available for supervisors and reviewing officials (both civilian and Corps) to guide them through the review process described in the officer tutorial. If you have any questions regarding the tutorial or the upcoming billets transformation process, please contact: CAPT Byron P. Bailey, MPH Transformation Officer - Billets U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Public Health and Science 1101 Wootton Parkway, Suite 100, Room 117 Rockville, MD 20852 (240) 453-6101 (voice) (240) 453-6141 (fax) byron.bailey@hhs.gov

Billets for USPHS Officers

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ALL DENTAL OFFICERS

Nominations for the 2010 USPHS Dental Professional Advisory Committee (DePAC)

Nominations, including self-nominations, are now being accepted for voting membership for the 2010-2012 Dental Professional Advisory Committee (DePAC). The deadline for completed nomination packets is 30 October 2009. Please see below for additional information on DePAC and the nomination process. ALL Public Health Service dentists who want to make a difference and contribute to the dental category are encouraged to apply.

Approximately four slots for voting members (3-year terms) are available.
Those not selected to voting membership will be encouraged to participate in one of the DePAC subcommittees or workgroups.
The Dental Professional Advisory Committee (DePAC) provides advice and consultation to the Surgeon General and the Chief Dental Officer on professional and personnel issues related to the Dental Category. Members are required to attend the scheduled meetings during the three-year term. Meetings are typically held in Rockville, Maryland, and members in the field connect via teleconference if they are unable to travel to attend.
Qualified candidates will be identified primarily through nominations by the DePAC, the Chief Dental Officer, and self-nominations.
Candidates may be Commissioned Corps officers (CC) and Civil Service (CS) Dentists working within DHHS/DHS/DOJ.
Candidates must receive initial approval and subsequent support from their immediate supervisor and agency liaison.
DePAC members are selected to represent Public Health Service agencies, field and headquarters locations, CS employees and CC, and based upon the nominee's commitment to public health activities.
The Surgeon General makes final approval for DePAC membership.
All CC candidates must meet current Corps policies to include, but not limited to, Corps-wide readiness requirements from the time of the application deadline through appointment and subsequent three-year DePAC term. DePAC may request OFRD to check member basic readiness status at any time during a term.
Nominees, by virtue of their application, agree to attend monthly DePAC meetings (in person or by phone) and actively participate in ongoing DePAC activities, including membership and leadership of one or more subcommittees or workgroups.
Officers are encouraged to self-nominate using the application form (three year application)

For additional questions please contact:
CAPT Coleman Palmertree, 2009 DePAC Chair
956-504-7275 office
Coleman.palmertree@ihs.gov

CDR Phillip Woods, 2009 DePAC Vice-chair and 2010 DePAC Chair
530-827-8000 ext: 4218 office
Periophill@gmail.com

CAPT William Stenberg, 2009 DePAC Executive Secretary
907-487-5757 x115
William.v.stenberg@uscg.mil

COA, PHS Commissioned Corps Score Legislative Victory
Regular Corps Cap Raised to 4000

03/16/2009 - In a significant legislative victory for the Commissioned Corps and COA, the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Bill passed by Congress and signed into law last week by the President, raises the cap on the size of the Regular Corps from 2800 to 4000. This is the first time since 1992 that the size of the Regular Corps has been adjusted. It was recommendation Number One when COA's executive director called on Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) in January. Constraints on the size of the Regular Corps were impeding overall Corps growth as a disincentive to both recruitment and retention. Since the Corps was at or near the 2800 limit last year, annual Assimilation Boards were indefinitely postponed. COA anticipates that these important career path boards will be able to resume in the near future. Also included in the Appropriations bill was funding of $14.8 Million for Corps transformation. While this is less than half the requested amount of $30 Million, it is also a $10.7 Million increase over FY2008 funding for Corps transformation - clearly a small step in the right direction. COA is working on building on these successes in the FY2010 appropriations legislation currently under development on Capitol Hill.

www.coausphs.org

Hurricane Katrina Dental Deployment Video

USPHS dental hygienist, LTJG Charles Brucklier, produced a video highlighting his deployment to Hurricane Katrina in Gulfport, Mississppi. You can view his video at the following link: This is a 11.5 Megabyte Quicktime formated video

Katrina Video

The Mission of the Commissioned Corps
Protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of the Nation

As America's uniformed service of public health professionals, the Commissioned Corps achieves this mission through:

Rapid and effective response to public health needs
Leadership and excellence in public health practices, and
The advancement of public health science

Committed to the Mission of the Commissioned Corps of the USPHS: Protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of the Nation

Call for 2011 COA Co-Coordinators

ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE 2011 DePAC AWARDS NOMINATION CYCLE

Congratulations USPHS Dentists

Dental Category Day - May 25, 2010

Dental Professional Advisory Committee Awards

Commissioned Corps Responder of the Year

USPHS Special Assignment Award

Hispanic Officers Advisory Committee Award

Please take time to congratulate and thank the recipients for their career dedication and exemplary service to the Dental Category

Need for Assistance: Pacific Partnership 2010 USNS MERCY Mission

Information available regarding billets training..on behalf of Transformation Officer

Billets for USPHS Officers

COA, PHS Commissioned Corps Score Legislative Victory Regular Corps Cap Raised to 4000

Hurricane Katrina Dental Deployment Video

The Mission of the Commissioned Corps Protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of the Nation

Committed to the Mission of the Commissioned Corps of the USPHS:
Protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of the Nation

Information available regarding billets training..
on behalf of Transformation Officer

COA, PHS Commissioned Corps Score Legislative Victory
Regular Corps Cap Raised to 4000

The Mission of the Commissioned Corps
Protecting, promoting, and advancing the health and safety of the Nation