Officer Spotlight

Deployed twice in 2008, responding to two separate hurricanes during each tour, CAPT Shugart helped conduct environmental health inspections so local health staff could assess their own needs, and assisted in re-opening facilities on their behalf to help their communities get back to work and school.

In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic while the world was shutting down, CDR Kamon accepted the call, like many others, to respond to the Public Health Emergency. At the request of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, FDA created the first-ever incident and product specific 24/7 call center. CDR Kamon served as the incident commander and oversaw a team that provided technical and regulatory expertise to COVID-19 specific device manufacturers. The call center transformed into an emergency lifeline for responding to inquiries from both the industry and members of the public.

Deployed to a Remote Area Medical mission in Oklahoma in 2019, CDR Daab lead a primary care team serving hundreds of underserved patients in rural areas. He considers the experience to be invaluable and was thrilled to see many dedicated Public Health Service officers coming together to provide such vital, no-cost healthcare services to the community.

In 2019, LCDR Zhou was privileged to deploy aboard the USNS Comfort (U.S. Navy hospital ship) for the humanitarian mission in Central America and the Caribbean. For over 30 days, he served alongside sister servicemembers and other governmental partners to provide pharmacy services in Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts.

Deployed for several months as peer-to-peer engagement lead of “HHS Telemedicine Hack,” LCDR Cross helped design and launch this effort and created strategic partnerships to accelerate telemedicine implementation across diverse ambulatory specialties and practice settings both nationally and internationally.