My job...

So what is my job? That's a pretty darn common question I get from people when I talk to them, so here goes.

Here's what I don't do:
I don't see patients
I don't work in a laboratory
I don't only do "research"
I don't work on Ebola
I'm not in the army (or any other armed forces)
I'm not affiliated with the CIA :)

Here's what I do do:

I sit in an office and run statistical programs
I respond to public health emergencies like Katrina
I develop plans on how public health agencies will respond to and control various diseases (pertussis (aka whooping cough), MRSA (methicillin resistant staph aureus), obesity, depression, etc.)
I study diseases (infectious and otherwise) and try to understand them on a population level (again, no patients here.)
I am a member of the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service.
Hmm...I think I'm going to stop here and explain what the Corps is. (I started out just putting it in as a note, but it began getting very long.)

OK, so what the hell is the commissioned corps? Bear with me here. There are seven uniformed services in the US government; five of those are armed (navy, air force, marines, army, coast guard) and have military missions (aka I'm gonna shoot at people. Isn't it fun.) The other two uniformed services are the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association; they're the ones who fly hurricane tracker planes, run the National Weather Services and other cool stuff like that.) and the Commissioned Corps. (Most people are familiar with the Surgeon General, who is the highest ranking member of the Corps.) The Corps grew out of the Marine Hospital Service which ran quartantine stations and inspected ships; they were in charge of physicals and quartantine on Ellis Island and other major points of entry.

The current mission of the corps is to safeguard the health of the public and has nothing to do with the military. Corps personnel are most commonly found at CDC, NIH, FDA, IHS (Indian Health Service) and other health-related federal agencies. Basically, the Corps is a personnel system at this point. If you want to work at one of the agencies listed above, you can get your job as either regular ol' civil service or as commissioned corps. The corps really doesn't have a separate budget (unlike the armed services) and if you do go corps, your salary and benefits are still paid by the agency you work for. There are advantages and disadvantages to each system.

Here are some of the similarities:
1 You're working for the feds either way
2 You have to take a loyalty oath either way (I swear to uphold and defend the consitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic). There's no way around this one if you want to work for the feds. Everyone has to take it.
3 You day-to-day job is the same
4 You have a lot of paperwork and beauacracy

Some of the differences
Yes, corps personnel have ranks and wear uniforms. Our uniforms look a lot like the navy and most people think we are navy (in fact, most navy personnel don't even know about the corps and think we're navy). As for wearing the uniform, well...I last wore mine in November sometime. People in Altanta have wear theirs more frequently (once a week), but out in the boonies, once every six months is more common.
Yes, I've learned how to salute and what to do when a flag officer drives by in their car and what morning colors is and on and on and on. (Basic Officer Training was 3 days of REALLY boring lectures. Three days is all we get, no boot camp or anything like that.)
We get military benefits (health care, use of the PX/BX, etc.)
We get 4-6 weeks of vacation a year
I can't get a nose piercing.

So what are the differences from the "real" military:
Well, technically we're supposed to salute and have "military disipline." BUT, 90% of us think saluting is a joke and act the same in uniform as we do out of uniform. (The problem is the 10% that do take it sort of seriously. :)
Yeah, we're supposed to take orders, but I haven't yet met an officer that actually gave an order.
We don't get "assigned" anywhere. We have to find our own jobs and so have complete control over where we move to.

So for those of you who know where my politics lie, why am *I* in the corps. It's a complicated answer and I'm still not fully comfortable with it myself. Since this is already a rather long post, I think I'm going to save that for the next topic.

If you're interested in learning about the corps, check out the USPHS website


NEXT TOPIC: Why J is in the corps.
And after that: Epidemiology (not it's not about skin)