A face familiar to military medicine was picked to lead the Defense Department's medical school and research university in Bethesda, Maryland, after the school's previous president was pushed out last year.
Dr. Jonathan Woodson, an Army Reserve major general who served as assistant secretary of defense for health affairs under President Barack Obama, has been named the next president of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He will take over leadership of the school on June 21.
Woodson has served on the Board of Regents at the military medical university since 2016 and was chairman last year during the tumultuous departure of the school's previous president, Dr. Richard Thomas.
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The Defense Department chose not to renew Thomas' five-year contract when it expired in mid-2021, even though he received an overwhelming endorsement from the board, including a staunch defense by Woodson.
Thomas' supporters said the failure to renew the contract was politically motivated, since he promoted the school's expansion while a DoD initiative launched under President Donald Trump, a Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation review, recommended downsizing the university or completely eliminating it.
Woodson, who led the DoD's health affairs from 2010 to 2016, currently serves as a management professor at Boston University's Questrom School of Business and is a professor of surgery and professor of health law, policy and management in the university's School of Medicine and School of Public Health, respectively.
As a reservist, he commands U.S. Army Reserve Medical Command in Pinellas Park, Florida.
In a statement released Monday, Woodson said he was excited to serve as the seventh president of the school, which draws 2,500 students to the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, the Daniel K. Inouye Graduate School of Nursing and the university's Postgraduate Dental College and College of Allied Health Sciences.
"Preparing the health and medical research leaders needed for the Military Health System and the nation is an extremely important mission to ensure we always care for those we ask to go in harm's way," Woodson said in a statement.
"The depth and breadth of Dr. Woodson's more than 30 years of experience will be a major asset to the university and the Military Health System," Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Seileen Mullen said in a prepared statement.
Under Woodson's tenure as assistant secretary for health affairs at the Pentagon, the military health system began a major reform effort designed to contain the Defense Department's growing $50 billion health budget.
He oversaw initiatives that included creating the Defense Health Agency, now responsible for managing all military hospitals and clinics and overseeing all military medical support, training, education and administrative services within the department.
Woodson was a strong proponent for the DoD's medical center and clinic system, encouraging incentives to draw military family members back to military treatment facilities, which he considered to be the most cost-effective health care option for the department. However, he also reduced the geographic areas served by Tricare Prime as part of an effort to curb the ballooning budget, which was projected to reach $70 billion by 2025.
The Defense Department's health budget has not yet reached those projections. The proposed fiscal 2023 budget calls for $54 billion for the military health system. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences' budget in fiscal 2021 was more than $180 million.
Woodson is a veteran of Operation Desert Storm, Kosovo, and Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. He also served as senior medical officer for management response following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.
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