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NNMC, Walter Reed Celebrate One-Year Count Down to Integration

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS100917-17
9/17/2010

By Bernard S. Little, Walter Reed Army Medical Center Public Affairs

Bethesda, Md. (NNS) -- Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) and National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) celebrated the "one year to go" scheduled opening of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Bethesda (WRNMMCB) and the 159th birthday of Maj. Walter Reed during a ceremony aboard WRAMC Sept 13.

Col. Charles W. Callahan, NNMC deputy commander and chief of staff, represented NNMC at the ceremony. Callahan is the former commander of DeWitt Army Community Hospital at Fort Belvoir, and deputy commander for clinical services for the Walter Reed Health Care System (WRHCS) at WRAMC.

Col. Van Coots, WRHCS commander, said Callahan represents the advance party of key staff at Bethesda who will become the leadership of WRNMMCB next year.

"He has seen this [transition] process from every angle, so if he is still smiling, then we must be on the right track to success in this long and challenging campaign," said Coots.

"We are on the right track," Callahan said of the integration of military health care in the national capital area. He said that Rear Adm. Matthew L. Nathan, NNMC commander, "anticipated the transformation of the national hospital to a joint facility within the next year, and invited [Callahan] to be the first Army executive officer in Bethesda's 70-year history. I have the honor of working alongside our Navy brothers and sisters, learning from them and representing them here today.

"Admiral Nathan also understands the importance and significance to the mantle of legacy that will be passed from Walter Reed Army Medical Center's decommission next summer, and it becomes the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center at Bethesda. The name Walter Reed represents the very best of military medicine in ways that our Navy colleagues have already embraced," Callahan said.

Although much has been accomplished in the transition process, Callahan said those challenges still to be faced will be done so in the legacy of the hospital's namesake.

"We will be able to get our arms around these things in the months to come, because we know what we have to do. We have to deliver the highest quality of clinical care to our patients, and this is the legacy of Maj. Walter Reed."

Callahan described Reed as an accomplished combat surgeon who cared for the wounded, ill and injured on the western battlefield; one of the world's experts in infectious diseases; and a physician skilled in obstetrics and pediatrics.

Reed delivered and cared for his own children when he and his wife Emile were posted on the western frontier.

Callahan said the training of the military healers is another of Reed's legacy, and that Reed was one of the first four professors of the Army Medical School when it opened in 1893.

"His legacy also laid the foundation for clinical and bench research that is crucial for the training of practitioners from all disciplines," he said. "His work in identifying the mosquito as the vector for yellow fever was also the first major project that ever formalized the notion of informed consent, with the young men and women who allowed themselves to be bitten by mosquitoes."

This also gave impetus to the new fields of epidemiology and biomedicine.

"We know what has to be done [in the coming months for the transformation process], and we have Walter Reed's legacy to help guide us," Callahan said. "The greatest thing we share in common, and the reason why we are going to be successful in this endeavor, is because every one of us clearly knows our why - we care for warriors and their families present, past and future.

"Every day on the wards and clinics at Walter Reed and National Naval Medical Center, Maj. Walter Reed's prayer is answered anew as staffs in camouflage and khaki administer healing to the wounded from this war, their families, and the deserving veterans of wars gone by," Callahan said.

During the ceremony Coots made a toast.

"Walter Reed on his birthday," said Coots. "Walter Reed Army Medical Center and its great legacy; and the joint future of military medicine at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Bethesda and Fort Belvoir Community Hospital."

The 2005 Base Realignment and Closure recommendations, released May 13, 2005, require realigning and moving staff and resources at WRAMC to modern health-care facilities now under construction at NNMC and Fort Belvoir, Va., by Sept. 15, 2011. The recommendations became law Nov. 9, 2005.