Commissioned Corps Headquarters would like to congratulate CAPT Erica Schwartz on her selection as Director of Health, Safety and Work-Life, and Chief Medical Officer of the U.S. Coast Guard. We wish CAPT Schwartz success in her new position and look forward to working closely with her in her new role as the highest ranking USPHS officer assigned to the United States Coast Guard.
Erica G. Schwartz was selected by the Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard, and appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to serve as the Director, of Health, Safety and Work-Life, and Chief Medical Officer of the U.S. Coast Guard. CAPT Schwartz will officially relieve RADM Maura K. Dollymore upon her retirement on 1 November 2015 and will receive promotion to RADM (upper half) at that time.
The Director of Health, Safety, and Work-Life, is responsible for the Coast Guard's health care system of 42 clinics and 150 sick bays, as well as, operational and off-duty mishap prevention, response and investigation. The Director, also oversees the Coast Guard's child care programs and food services delivery programs, ashore and afloat, and the Coast Guard's Ombudsman, Substance Abuse, Health Promotion and Sexual Assault Prevention and Response programs.
CAPT Schwartz is trained and Board Certified in Preventive Medicine (Occupational Medicine). CAPT Schwartz graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Brown University in 1994 and received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Brown University School of Medicine in 1998. She completed her Occupational Medicine residency with a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree with a dual concentration in Health Services Administration and Occupational and Environmental Medicine in 2001. CAPT Schwartz also has a Juris Doctorate from the University of Maryland and is admitted to the District of Columbia Bar.
Preceding her transfer to the Public Health Service and Coast Guard in 2005, she served as a Navy Occupational Medicine physician. Her assignments included serving as the Chief of the Occupational Medicine Clinic and the Immunization Clinic and serving as the Preventive Medicine Department Head at the Naval Medical Clinic in Annapolis, MD. She also served as an Occupational Medicine physician and clinical epidemiologist at the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center (formerly known as the Navy Environmental Health Center) in Portsmouth, VA.
CAPT Schwartz served as the Chief of Health Services and the Coast Guard’s Preventive Medicine Chief in the Operational Medicine and Medical Readiness Division at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, DC. She instituted the following critical interagency and intra-agency programs: Navy Safe Harbor, Disease Surveillance, Deployment Health, Adenovirus Vaccination, Serology Screening, Febrile Respiratory Illness and the Chemical, Biological and
Radiologic Medical Countermeasures programs. As an expert in health care policy, she wrote the first-ever force health protection policies to include: the Pandemic Influenza Force Health Protection policy, the Anthrax and Smallpox Vaccination policies, the Quarantinable Communicable Disease policy, the Periodic Health Assessment policy, and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus policy. Additionally, she developed force health protection guidance for numerous contingency operations, to include Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, Operation Unified Response (2010 Haiti earthquake), the Deepwater Horizon Operation, and the most recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa. CAPT Schwartz served as the Coast Guard’s principal expert on pandemic influenza – hand-picked as the medical consultant for the DHS Pandemic Influenza Principal Federal Official. She also deployed as the Medical Unit Leader for the Deepwater Horizon Unified Area Command. Most recently, she served as one of the Ebola Crisis Action Team leaders, responsible for ensuring Coast Guard personnel had clear and actionable force health protection guidance for this emerging and fatal disease threat.
CAPT Schwartz’s awards and decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal and Coast Guard and Navy Commendation Medals. She was recognized by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs by being honored as one of the Military Health System Female Physicians of the Year.