§239l–1 Administration

Summary

The Surgeon General must run the Track using money from the Department of Health and Human Services. The National Health Care Workforce Commission will advise the Surgeon General. After getting the Commission’s input, the Surgeon General will hire professors, teachers, and staff and use affiliated training institutions when possible. Pay and retirement benefits for Track staff will be set by the HHS Secretary so they are similar to those at fully accredited health schools. The Surgeon General can give faculty academic titles. The restriction in section 5373 of title 5 does not limit the Surgeon General’s power to set salaries and benefits. The Surgeon General can make reimbursable agreements with other federal agencies to use existing federal medical resources in the United States or at locations chosen under section 239l(a)(2). Those sites keep their own identity and mission. The Surgeon General can affiliate with accredited universities and may include payments for educational services. The Surgeon General must set up training programs (postdoctoral, postgraduate, technical) and a cooperative program covering medical, dental, physician assistant, pharmacy, behavioral and mental health, public health, and nursing students, plus other needed programs. The Surgeon General must also offer continuing medical education. The Surgeon General may contract with nonprofit groups, accept and give grants, provide staff services, accept gifts and bequests, make other helpful agreements, and take volunteers. Contracts cannot require spending money before budget authority is enacted. Scientists and clinical staff brought in under agreements may be appointed to Track positions. Volunteers are treated as federal employees only for purposes of chapter 81 of title 5 (workers’ compensation) and chapter 171 of title 28 (tort claims), and for no other federal purposes.