Military welcomes needed new doctors in Norfolk

NORFOLK

Just before they took the oath promising to support and defend the Constitution, Rear Adm. Matthew Nathan told a group of soon-to-be-military doctors about an unofficial oath they will make to the men and women they serve.

"If illness or disease or harm wants to get to you, it's going to have to go through me first."

"That's what you do," said Nathan, commander of Portsmouth Naval Medical Center. "That's your calling."

It's an especially big week for the 14 medical students. On Thursday, on board the battleship Wisconsin, they were commissioned as officers in the Army, Navy and Air Force. On Saturday, they can add the title "doctor" to their name as graduates of Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Lt. Nehkonti Adams had been waiting at least 11 years for this moment, since she was an enlisted sailor deployed to South America.

"For the first time, I saw poverty," said Adams, who came to the U.S. from Liberia with her family when she was 11. Moved by the devastation caused by poverty and AIDS, she knew then she wanted to become a doctor... but first there was the little matter of starting college.

Adams, 32, said her long road has helped her mentor students who wonder if they'll ever reach their goals.

"I tell them, it may not be right away, but you'll get there."

Adams enlisted in the Navy at 18 and is eager to serve sailors enlisting today.

"They seem so young. I think they're so brave. I wonder, 'Would I have been that brave?' " said Adams, who will do an internal medicine residency at the naval medical center in San Diego. "There's a war and they're still signing up. I'm so proud of them for that."

Adams is part of the largest group of medical recruits to come out of EVMS since 2001. They're especially welcome now as the military struggles to provide medical personnel to serve in two wars, on humanitarian missions and in military hospitals.

Nathan said the Navy gets most of its new doctors, including Thursday's EVMS group, through the Health Professions Scholarship Program, which pays for medical school and provides a stipend in exchange for a service commitment.

If the Navy can wait a few years, it may be able to snag Hudson Scanlan, who watched as his dad became a lieutenant commander Thursday. Paul Scanlan is a former Navy aviator who will be doing an internal medicine residency at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center.

Hudson, 4, thought the whole thing was pretty cool and said he just might like to follow in his father's footsteps - and then some.

"I'm going to be a policeman, a doctor and fireman. Even a Navy guy."

Nancy Young, (757) 446-2947, nancy.young@pilotonline.com