I am passionate about meeting new people and discussing all kinds of topics. This made the decision of joining the Junior Officers Advisory Group (JOAG) Recruitment and Retention (R&R) Committee an easy one because of the fulfilling opportunities that are offered to inform people about the Commissioned Corps and how they as officers could make a huge impact on Public Health. Hence, I decided to give back by looking to my Alma mater, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH), to see if I could talk with students about the Corps. After contacting the school, Career Services recommended that I participate in their 27th Annual 2011 Public Health Career Fair on March 4th. Participation of Commissioned Corps officers in the Johns Hopkins Career Fair was coordinated by two fellow officers and myself, who are current students. For me, this was not just a recruitment event, but a chance to come back to a place I spent nearly six years, see some old friends, and share my experiences in the USPHS.

JHSPH is an outstanding institute to seek well-qualified USPHS candidates. It is the oldest and largest school of public health in the world, which was founded in 1916 by William H. Welch and John D. Rockefeller. It is routinely rated as the top ranked public health school by U.S. News & World Report.1 The school currently enrolls 2,056 students. JHSPH consists of 10 departments offering numerous degrees from policy to bench science. With this extensive breadth of studies, JHSPH is a great source for potential officers of all disciplines in the USPHS.

The make up of the student body within JHSPH consists of nurses, doctors, scientists, health safety officers (HSOs), and policy makers. Therefore, it was clear that the JHSPH career fair would benefit by having USPHS officers from various categories in attendance to address career-specific questions. Hence, volunteers were requested for the event through the JOAG R&R Committee along with the Scientist, Nurse, and Physician PACs. The response was outstanding.

In total, we had seven junior officers and two senior officers from SciPAC, PharmPAC, N-PAC, HS-PAC, and P-PAC participating in this event. The officers were LT Quocbao Pham, LCDR Chekesha Clingman, LCDR Latonia Ford, LCDR Laurelle Cascio, LCDR Scott Steffen, LCDR Sharon Edelson-Mammel, LCDR Somya Dunn, CDR Claudine Samanic, and CDR Soju Chang. These officers did a great job by coming together to help make the event a true success. The career fair lasted for five hours with 575 students participating.

Throughout the day, we met with nearly 100 students from all disciplines with a high representation of potential Scientists and HSO candidates. I met a student who is also an Army Captain at Fort Detrick. This officer immediately impressed me and I enjoyed meeting an officer from a sister service. She expressed interest in continuing her career in uniform, so I told her about the benefits of being a USPHS officer with prior military experience. With that conversation, she became more excited about the Corps and I felt it illustrated the need for programs/initiatives for individuals with prior military experience.

I believe this recruitment event was a complete success for both the students and officers involved. The officers shared their experiences while meeting many outstanding students with various backgrounds and exciting futures. I am optimistic that we may see some of the Johns Hopkins students again, wearing the Commissioned Corps uniform.

Please Note: All background information was used with permission from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health website: http://www.jhsph.edu/school_at_a_glance/ index.html

Visit JOAG at: http://www.usphs.gov/corpslinks/joag/

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