§206 Assignment of Officers

Summary

The Surgeon General must pick one Regular Corps officer to run the Office and to step in as Surgeon General if the Surgeon General is absent, disabled, or the job is empty. That person is called the Deputy Surgeon General. The Surgeon General also must assign eight Regular Corps officers to specific senior posts, such as the Director of the National Institutes of Health and the chiefs of key medical, nursing, dental, pharmacy, sanitary engineering, and bureau services. Those officers are called Assistant Surgeons General. The Surgeon General must name which Assistant Surgeon General will serve as Surgeon General if both the Surgeon General and the Deputy Surgeon General are absent, disabled, or the jobs are vacant. With the Secretary’s approval, the Surgeon General can create special temporary Assistant Surgeon General positions and fill them with officers from the Regular Corps or the Ready Reserve Corps; those officers get the Assistant Surgeon General title while serving. On any day, these temporary positions cannot exceed 1 percent of the highest number, during the 90 days before that day, of Regular Corps officers on active duty plus Ready Reserve officers on active duty for more than 30 days. If the number goes over that 1 percent on any day, then for up to one year afterward the count can only be reduced when someone holding a temporary position resigns, retires, dies, or moves to a lower-grade job.