rapidfire
Never Stop Serving C
apt. Susan Blank, USPHS, M.D, M.P.H., assistant commissioner of the New York City Department of Health
and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH), joined the U.S. Public Health Service in 1990. She is one of more than 6,500 commissioned USPHS officers who promote, protect, and advance the nation’s health and safety within more than 20 federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration, and the Nation- al Institutes of Health. How did you choose this career? I trained in pediatrics [and] science and engineering and was fluent in several languages. I was advised to consider work as an epidemic intelligence officer. Why are you in New York? I’m a CDC assignee responsible for STD (sexually transmitted disease) control. Is your post exciting? As a doctor, I cared for one person at a time. Now, it’s an entire population. In a local health de- partment, you really can do things that are much harder to do at a higher level. Local policies can be different from the surgeon general’s office, so we need to deal with local politics. This requires delicacy.
Is anything frustrating about your current assignment? In our culture, it’s far easier to see sexual images and hear sexual banter than to discuss sexual health. The topic makes politicians and lawmakers uncom- fortable, but sexual health means healthy babies and healthy people and makes for a healthy nation. Are you involved in the U.S. Ebola response or planning? Ebola requires a Herculean na- tional response. My role was with the NYC DOHMH’s planning and executing of active monitoring, quarantines, helping health facili- ties prepare to isolate and manage a potential patient, and especially public education. Why is MOAA membership im-
portant to you? Insurance was the hook. Although I’ve been in the service for 20-plus years, I went to my first MOAA [chapter] meeting a couple months ago. I had no idea what a rich community existed here in New York City. Now I’m hooked by the vitality and commitment of the members I met.
— Marilyn Pribus Attention! Check out these military-related entertainment offerings.
FILM KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE (20th Century Fox) A super- secret spy organization recruits an unrefined but promising street kid (Taron Egerton) into the agency’s ultra-competitive training program just as a global threat emerges
from a twisted tech genius (Samuel L. Jackson).
BOOK LIBERATORS (Dutton) Author James Wesley, Rawles, a former U.S. Army intelligence of- ficer and survivalist imag- ines the end of America and the Western world’s
28 MILITARY OFFICER FEBRUARY 2015
descent into chaos. When a tyrannical army takes over, a valiant resistance led by two former service- members rises up.
BOOK GREEN ON BLUE (Scribner) Author Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine and veteran of
the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, breaks new ground by writing from the Afghan perspective about the complex deci- sions a teenaged Afghan orphan must make as both the U.S. and his vil- lage people demand his loyalty after an attack. MO
PHOTO: TIM RYAN SMITH
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