The surgeon general of the Navy (SGN) is the most senior commissioned officer of the Medical Corps of the United States Navy and is the principal advisor to the United States secretary of the navy, chief of naval operations and director of the defense health agency on all health and medical matters pertaining to the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. As head of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, the surgeon general also manages Navy and Marine healthcare policy, administering the services' healthcare and biomedical research facilities as well as the various staff corps of BUMED, including the Medical Corps and an enlisted corps. The surgeon general is also a member of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

From 1965 to 2019, the surgeon general was appointed as a vice admiral, until the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 struck the surgeon general's statutory rank. Currently the surgeon general of the Navy is the only uniformed service surgeon general to not be a three-star general or flag officer. There have been several attempts by the House of Representatives over the years to address the rank inequality but all have failed. The House version of the 2023, 2024, and 2025 NDAA each included a clause restoring the surgeon general's three-star rank, but the clause is removed when the Senate reconcilies their version of the NDAA with the House's. The closest acknowledgement from the Senate of the rank disparity came via the 2024 NDAA, when they attached a house report (H. Rept. 118-301) to it, acknowledging that the Navy does have the authority to allow the surgeon general to be designated a three-star rank, if an officer is nominated for appointment and confirmed.

Establishment of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery

On 31 August 1842, the United States Congress passed a Navy appropriation bill that was a blueprint for efficiency. The legislation provided for five Navy bureaus United States Navy bureau system to replace the outdated Board of Navy Commissioners—Yards and Docks; Construction, Equipment, and Repair; Provisions and Clothing; Ordnance and Hydrography; and Medicine and Surgery. Heading each of the bureaus was a "Chief" to be appointed by the President of the United States.

The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) became the central administrative headquarters for the Navy Medical Department, and those names became interchangeable. The general order of 26 November 1842, which defined the duties of the new bureaus, charged BUMED with:

All medicines and medical stores of every description, used in the treatment of the sick, the diseased and the wounded; All boxes, vials, and other vessels containing the same; All clothing, beds, and bedding for the sick; All surgical instruments of every kind; The management of hospitals, so far as the patients therein are concerned; All appliances of every sort, used in surgical and medical practice; All contracts, accounts, and returns, relating to these and such other subjects as shall hereafter be assigned to this bureau.

Overseeing all of these duties, and directing the medical department, was the Chief of BUMED, William P. C. Barton. Barton served at this post until 1844. He was followed by Thomas Harris, William Whelan, Phineas Horwitz, and William Maxwell Wood. Since the days of Barton's directorship the most senior ranking physician in the Navy Medical Department has held the title of Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.

Creation of the title On 3 March 1871, Congress passed legislation granting medical and other staff officers of the Navy "relative rank" with grades "equal to but not identical with the grades of the line." This Naval Appropriations Act went further than any previous Congressional action in transforming and enhancing the Navy Medical Department. The Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery now had the additional title "Surgeon General," with the relative rank of Commodore. At the helm of this "revitalized" organization stood the first Surgeon General, William Maxwell Wood (1809–1880), a man entering his 42nd year of a naval service as unusual and varied as could be. Wood had served aboard , one of the first steam vessels of the Navy, and designated flagship during the "expedition for the suppression of Indian hostilities on the coast of Florida" (a.k.a. the Seminole Wars). Wood served shore duty at Sackets Harbor, New York, Baltimore, Maryland, had duty as Fleet Surgeon of the Pacific Fleet, and served under Commodore John D. Sloat in California during the Mexican–American War. However fitting he may have been as the first Navy Surgeon General, he served less than two years.

Chief of Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Image Name Dates of Tenure William P. C. Barton 1842–1844 Thomas Harris 1844–1853 William Whelan 1853–1865 Phineas J. Horwitz 1865–1869 William Maxwell Wood 1869–1871

List of chiefs of BUMED and surgeons general of the Navy Image Surgeon General Date(s) of tenure CDRE William Maxwell Wood 1869–1871 CDRE Jonathan M. Foltz 1871–1872 CDRE James C. Palmer 1872–1873 CDRE Joseph Beale 1873–1877 CDRE William Grier 1877–1878 CDRE J. Winthrop Taylor 1878–1879 CDRE Philip S. Wales 1879–1884 CDRE Francis M. Gunnell 1884–1888 CDRE J. Mills Browne 1888–1893 CDRE James R. Tryon 1893–1897 CDRE Newton L. Bates 1897 RADM William Knickerbocker Van Reypen 1897–1902 RADM Presley Marion Rixey 1902–1910 RADM Charles F. Stokes 1910–1914 RADM William Clarence Braisted 1914–1920 RADM Edward R. Stitt 1920–1928 RADM Charles E. Riggs 1928–1933 RADM Perceval S. Rossiter 1933–1938 VADM Ross T. McIntire 1938–1946 RADM Clifford A. Swanson 1946–1951 RADM H. Lamont Pugh 1951–1955 RADM Bartholomew W. Hogan 1955–1961 RADM Edward C. Kenney 1961–1965 VADM Robert B. Brown 1965–1969 VADM George M. Davis 1969–1973 VADM Donald L. Custis 1973–1976 VADM Willard P. Arentzen 1976–1980 VADM J. William Cox 1980–1983 VADM Lewis H. Seaton 1983–1987 VADM James A. Zimble 1987–1991 VADM Donald F. Hagen 1991–1995 VADM Harold M. Koenig 1995–1998 VADM Richard A. Nelson 1998–2001 VADM Michael L. Cowan 2001–2004 VADM Donald Arthur 2004–2007 VADM Adam M. Robinson Jr. 2007–2011 VADM Matthew L. Nathan 2011–2015 VADM C. Forrest Faison III 2015–2019 RADM Bruce L. Gillingham 2019–2023 RADM Darin K. Via 2023acting from March to December 2023–2025 RADM Rick Freedman (acting) 2025–present

See also Surgeon General of the United States Surgeon General of the United States Army Surgeon General of the United States Air Force

References

Further reading Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, "The United States Navy Medical Department at War, 1941–1945." Washington, 1946. 757 pp.; describe the operational role of naval medical units ashore and afloat partly online A History of Medicine in the Early U.S. Navy, Harold D. Langley Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000 The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1953) online

External links

Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Early Civil War Treatise on Gunshot Wounds By Surgeon General P.J. Horwitz Shapell Manuscript Foundation