Air University Research: AY20 RTF Surgeon General

Surgeon General: At the request of the Air University Integration Cell, the Surgeon General’s Research Task Force was chartered for AY20 to formalize the work that had been done with the “Medical Horizons” research track at Air University from AY16-AY19.  It consolidated the work that had been done by the Medical Community, the “Dual Agency Professional” communities (Medical, Chaplain, JAG, and other partners) and others in support of Line Air Force and Joint missions.  These were broadly organized around the Air Force Surgeon General’s priorities of “Readiness” and “Resiliency,” with a focus on the “Relationships” (across Medical, in partnership with our Dual Agency Professional, and in support of Line and Joint missions), taking care of the service members and their families that make the mission happen. 

The intent was to continue to loosely focus AWC and ACSC students with faculty around issues of “Readiness”, “Resiliency” and “Relationships” by creating a framework where students could explore lines of effort individually and collaboratively.  As they built upon what had been done in the past, they would extend the research while meeting academic requirements in fulfillment of the master’s degree. 

Each line of effort was scored individually based upon maturity (Attachment 1).  Together, the 8 lines of effort provided the framework to develop and test concepts related to development of effective future focused Medical and Human Domain Support Doctrine that could be translated for the future into curriculum across the Continuum of Learning (CoL) for not only Medics and Dual Agency Professionals, but also the Line and Joint partners that own the mission and ultimately the responsibility for military leadership in the military.  

After the RSS trips were cancelled for the AWC, many students volunteered either thru a third term elective or just self-study period loosely aligned under the name “COVID-Survive to Operate” activities.  These activities were focused on security issues surrounding COVID19, and rapidly generated a body of research and white papers that were initially forwarded to senior stakeholders, and then later to a large audience academically and informally.

For AY21: The personnel handover and reformation of the Resilience RTF into one sponsored by HAF A1Z and the Chaplain Corps led the SG-focused projects to be reshaped into a two-term elective based in AWC under Col.Nelson and the incoming SG Chair.