Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health will sub for Acting Surgeon General for UH medical school visit

Change of schedule due to "transition activity"in Washington, D.C.

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Tina Shelton, (808) 692-0897
Communications Director
Posted: Feb 5, 2009

Rear Admiral Steven K. Galson, M.D., M.P.H., the Acting U.S. Surgeon General, has withdrawn from a planned visit to Hawaiʻi and the University of Hawaiʻi‘s John A. Burns School of Medicine on Wednesday, February 11, 2009. Instead, the appearances will be by Dr. Don Wright, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health, and Rear Admiral David Rutstein, the Chief Medical Officer of the U.S.Public Health Service.

Dr. Wright and Admiral Rutstein will meet with students at 5:30 p.m. in Room 314 of the Medical Education Building at the school‘s 651 Ilalo Street (Kakaʻako) campus. At 6 p.m., they will address the gathering in the Auditorium of the same building, also on the Third Floor.

RADM Rutstein is the Director of the Office of Force Readiness and Deployment in the Office of the Surgeon General, responsible for the oversight and management of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (6,000 + active duty officers), including responses to public health emergencies as well as international and domestic humanitarian responses to unmet public health needs. RADM Rutstein also serves as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General and the Assistant Secretary for Health on preparedness and response activities.

Dr. Don Wright acts as an advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health on matters involving the nation's public health and science. His responsibilities include planning and execution of public health policy as it relates to disease prevention, health promotion, women's and minority health, the reduction of health disparities, the fight against HIV/AIDS, blood safety, and pandemic influenza planning.

The Office of the Surgeon General in Washington said Admiral Galson is being held back in D.C. to help with the transition as a new U.S. Surgeon General is expected to be officially nominated soon by the President.