USU Leaders Drive Force Development and Operational Readiness at 2026 MHS Conference

Uniformed Services University leaders tackle readiness and enlisted-to-provider pipelines at the 2026 MHS Conference in Dallas.

May 28, 2026 by USU News

On Wednesday, May 27, 2026, Uniformed Services University (USU) leadership stepped to the forefront of the Military Health System (MHS) Conference at the Hyatt Regency Dallas. Facing an audience of MHS policymakers, practitioners, and strategic planners, USU faculty tackled the system's most pressing issues to champion a unified vision of military medicine. With a clear mandate to support the warfighter, university deans aggressively mapped out new structural reforms, breakthrough research funding, and crucial enlisted pathways designed to sustain a medically ready force.

The stakes were set early in the day by top Department of War officials, who framed the current realities facing the enterprise. Opening the event, Hon. Anthony J. Tata, Under Secretary of War for Personnel and Readiness, emphasized that system design and resource allocation must be reverse-engineered from the needs of the frontline warfighter. Tata highlighted the dangers of the clinical "Walker Dip" where military medical professionals lack exposure to complex trauma cases, stressing the need for facility rescoping so that providers get the necessary repetitions to maintain high-acuity surgical readiness.

Hon. Keith Bass, Assistant Secretary of War for Health Affairs, echoed this urgency during the morning plenary. Bass noted that the MHS is currently short roughly 28,000 personnel. Closing this gap, he argued, requires more than rapid hiring; it demands a progressive, joint-service plan to position the right uniform and civilian assets globally. Throughout the day's breakout sessions, USU faculty demonstrated exactly how the university is solving those systemic challenges by transforming scholars into agile, operational leaders.

Optimization of MHS Leadership Education & Training

Dr. Eric Elster understands the visceral reality of the operating room as intimately as the complex administrative framework of higher education. A practicing solid organ transplant surgeon who still actively operates, Elster serves as the Dean of the USU School of Medicine. Moderating the "Optimization of MHS Leadership Education and Training" session, Elster guided a joint panel that included key USU advisors Dr. Christine Bader and Mr. Allen Middleton on the absolute necessity of standardizing medical leadership development.

Focusing on the mandates of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, Section 724, the panel dissected the evolution of education and training across the MHS. Rather than supporting disjointed training protocols, the session highlighted an aggressive push to build a unified executive leadership learning continuum that supports both officer and enlisted personnel.

The panel stressed that future leaders should not be required to re-learn basic management principles or Professional Military Education upon arriving at a new Military Treatment Facility (MTF). Instead, they said the DoW must identify common leadership principles that are irrespective of service branch or medical specialty, utilizing new tools to disseminate knowledge and resources seamlessly.

"We are going to offer all of our graduates the opportunity to get a master's in operations and leadership or health professional education," Elster explained. "With the concept that future USU graduates will be the experts in teaching the next generation, or the experts in running the system, whether that's in the deploying environment, or the MTF environment."

This structural overhaul serves as a driving force, shaping a system that eliminates redundant training and effectively prepares medical professionals for both the clinical demands of a trauma bay and the leadership principles of running an MTF.

Medical Service Corps: Ready Forces for MHS & War Goals

Developing the next generation of military medical capability extends well beyond the officer corps and requires a deliberate investment in the enlisted force as a critical component of readiness and operational effectiveness. Dr. James D. Nash, Dean of the USU College of Allied Health Sciences, guided the "Medical Service Corps: Ready Forces for MHS & War Goals" track. Opening a cross-service dialogue alongside senior leaders, Nash's panel focused on how officers and enlisted personnel must work collectively to drive readiness.

The panel directly tackled the urgent need for medical teams to secure high-acuity clinical experience. Discussing the concept of the MTF as a "foundry" for skill development, the session highlighted that historic combat survival rates-such as the 98% survivability seen at Role 2 facilities in Afghanistan-rely heavily on the synchronized expertise of enlisted surgical technicians and respiratory therapists.

By formalizing these enlisted-to-provider educational standardizations through his college, Nash and USU ensure the enlisted force maintains the tactical and academic foundation necessary to operate with greater autonomy, integrating them seamlessly into the strategic level of military health services.

Dental Corps Chiefs Panel

The seamless translation of laboratory and clinical science to battlefield survival was a central theme throughout the afternoon. Moderating the "Dental Corps Chiefs Panel," Dr. Drew Fallis, Executive Dean of the USU Postgraduate Dental College, steered a joint-service conversation toward leveraging clinical data for military readiness. The panel extensively discussed the operational burden of recruiting, noting that 23% to 50% of all military recruits enter active duty in dental readiness classification 3, rendering them non-deployable.

Fallis and the panel of service dental chiefs addressed how poor oral hygiene extends beyond the mouth, heavily impacting overall force lethality.

"They've identified 71 systemic conditions that are worsened or exacerbated by poor oral health," Fallis noted. Furthermore, dental emergencies account for one of the highest disease and non-battle injury (DNBI) rates in austere locations, with over 70% of those injuries shockingly occurring in warfighters who deployed in optimal dental readiness classes 1 and 2.

To combat this invisible drain on force lethality, Fallis announced a new tri-service dental research program.

"We just released the funding opportunity announcement last week for research categories and funding for specific military dental research projects," Fallis shared with the audience. This initiative bridges the microscopic realities of advanced manufacturing-such as 3D printing and materials science-with the global readiness of the joint force. Projects will target five priority domains, including dental readiness optimization, clinical practice transformation, advanced manufacturing and material science, and maxillofacial reconstruction and regeneration, heavily focusing on human performance optimization to understand how sleep apnea and parafunctional habits fundamentally impact deployability.

From Variation to Value: Driving Quality, Cost Effectiveness, and a Ready Medical Force

The critical necessity of optimizing human performance was further validated by Army Col. Vincent Capaldi, Professor and Chair of the USU Department of Psychiatry. Capaldi presented data from a study of over 130,000 active-duty service members, demonstrating that obstructive sleep apnea leads to a four-fold increase in post-traumatic stress disorder and heavily complicates traumatic brain injury recovery.

"Sleep is ammunition for the brain," Capaldi noted. "Simply put, you cannot send our warfighters out and expect them to be lethal in a near-peer fight without them having sufficient ammunition for the brain."

Capaldi warned against short-sighted administrative decisions that shut down sleep clinics to fund other specialties, emphasizing that pushing sleep care to the private network results in an inefficient use of funds and delayed treatments for the warfighter. Tata's earlier calls for real-time cognitive monitoring of recruits closely parallel Capaldi's push to prioritize brain health and sleep hygiene from the earliest days of service.

Mission-Critical Medicine: Securing the Military's Pharmaceutical Supply

Sustaining the warfighter also requires aggressive accountability in medical logistics. Dr. Tracey Perez Koehlmoos, Director of the USU Center for Health Services Research (CHSR), mapped out the deep vulnerabilities facing the military's pharmaceutical supply. Speaking on the "Mission Critical Medicine" panel, Koehlmoos noted that over half of the active pharmaceutical ingredients procured by the Defense Logistics Agency originate from non-compliant or unknown foreign sources.

Koehlmoos detailed how her team is conducting a sweeping landscape analysis to break down internal silos and secure compliant supply chains. She stressed that while the department has eagerly pursued supply chain mapping tools, data collection capabilities must become exponential rather than additive to match the speed of need.

Whether through structural overhauls in medical education, the rapid expansion of the enlisted-to-provider pipeline, or breakthrough operational research, USU's presence at the 2026 MHS Conference reaffirmed its commitment to producing top tier scholars, surgeons, and strategic leaders.