OHS staff honored with U.S. Public Health Service award

(COLLEGE STATION, TX) – Paul K. Carlton Jr., M.D., Lt. Gen. USAF (ret.), director of the Texas A&M Health Science Center Office of Homeland Security, and Dee Dee Leverett, program coordinator for the HSC-OHS, were honored Thursday, Sept. 27 during the 2007 U.S. Public Health Service Awards and Ensemble Recognition Ceremony for their work at Camp Bullis in Central Texas.

The awards ceremony was hosted by the PHS Office of the Surgeon General in Rockville, Md.

Dr. Carlton and Ms. Leverett provided numerous health care and military organizations with several weeks of disaster preparedness training at Camp Bullis, a U.S. Army camp northwest of San Antonio. Scenarios covered natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes/tornadoes, volcanoes and health epidemics (avian flu, SARS), as well as manmade hazards such as nuclear, biological or chemical terrorist attacks.

The training also served as a “wake-up call” to attendees. Several reports and studies indicate a strained health care system is having increased difficulty meeting daily demands, which could be exasperated in a crisis situation.