The Military Health System is entering a time of transition. After a decade making unprecedented strides in battlefield care, military medicine must now focus on the future. The Military Health System is actively transitioning from a culture of healthcare to one of health.

Promoting health for more than 9.7 million beneficiaries in the Military Health System (MHS) is a shared responsibility among the military services, purchased-care providers and beneficiaries that requires team collaboration to successfully achieve medically ready forces, healthy beneficiaries and a high-quality, cost-effective system for health.

Since becoming the Navy Surgeon General in November 2011, VADM Nathan's priority has been to ensure that Navy Medicine is strategically aligned with the imperatives and priorities of the Secretary of the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations and Commandant of the Marine Corps, including programs aimed at achieving healthy outcomes for its beneficiaries — the 21st century sailor and Marine.

U.S. military forces, now in the second decade of war, benefit from the vast achievements Army, Navy and Air Force medics have jointly made in deployed and enroute health care since 2001. With a 96% survival rate, we have never been better prepared to support our war-fighters.

WASHINGTON — If Navy leadership has anything to do with it, the misleading stereotype of the drunken sailor or hard-drinking Marine will fade into the past.

WASHINGTON — A controversial new law expands the circumstances when DoD funds can be used to pay for abortions to include cases of rape or incest.

Please read this article and participate in this month's U.S. Medicine readership poll: Should DoD be required to pay for abortions in cases of rape and incest as well as danger to the life of the mother?

BETHESDA, MD — Despite concerns about unhealthy lifestyles and rising obesity among recruits, the U.S. military might be in better shape than ever, as measured by cardiovascular disease markers.

WASHINGTON — How much burden have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan put on the military healthcare system?  A recent report suggests the effects have been significant and they will not end anytime soon.

WASHINGTON — Then-Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki asked for a plan to speed up integration of electronic health records late last year.

HOUSTON — As researchers delve deeper into the pathophysiology of PTSD, the complex interplay among the disease’s symptoms becomes more transparent, opening the possibility of new treatments.