A Delphi study was conducted of Army senior Medical Service Corps leaders (O6s) to identify the expected behaviors and competencies needed to ensure that junior officers will achieve successful careers as Medical Service Corps officers in the 21st century. A Delphi mailing was conducted in two phases. In the first iteration, 41 behaviors were identified to be of importance. In the second mailing, the 41 behaviors were rated for relative importance on a 7-point bipolar rating scale (1 = unimportant, 7 = most important). Comparisons were made between the ratings of administrative and biomedical scientific/technical (BS/T) series. Discriminant models developed to compare demographics between administrative and BS/T officers indicated that administrative officers had more time in grade, years of service, and professional military education, whereas BS/T officers reported significantly more civilian education. Minor differences among the two groups emerged for behavior ratings; however, the final priority order of behaviors reflected a high degree of consensus from both groups.
In support of the United States Army Medical Department Personnel Proponency Directorate (APPD), the authors developed a set of math programming models that optimize accessions (hires) for each of the 89 unique active duty officer specialties (e.g., neurosurgeons, aeromedical evacuation pilots, surgical nurses) within six separate corps (e.g., Nurse Corps, Medical Corps, Medical Specialist Corps) encompassing approximately 15,000 Army Medical Department officers. The significance of this set of programming models is that the models provide a decision support mechanism for determining how many officers of each grade to recruit and hire for each specialty. The Medical Specialist Corps model is explicated in this study.
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