§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. The Surgeon General will hire professors, teachers, and staff and should use existing training schools when possible. Pay, retirement, and other benefits for Track faculty will be set so they are comparable to those at accredited U.S. health schools. The Surgeon General may give academic titles. The usual federal pay cap in 5 U.S.C. 5373 does not limit the Surgeon General’s authority to set these salaries and benefits. The Surgeon General may make reimbursable agreements with federal agencies to use federal medical resources while those facilities keep their own identity and mission. The Surgeon General may also make affiliation agreements with accredited universities and health training institutions, including paying for student education. The Surgeon General can create postdoctoral, postgraduate, technical, and cooperative training programs for multiple health professions (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dental, public and mental health, physician assistants, etc.) and any other programs needed to run the Track cost-effectively. The Surgeon General must set up continuing medical education programs. The Surgeon General can contract with or give grants to nonprofits, accept gifts and bequests, bring in personnel under agreements, accept volunteer scholars, and enter other helpful agreements. The Track cannot sign a contract that requires spending money before Congress approves the budget. Scientists or health staff brought in under agreements may be appointed to Track positions. Volunteers are treated as federal employees only for worker’s compensation and for certain tort claims, and not as federal employees for other purposes.