Bronze Reliefs

Navy Medicine

"Standing by to assist". Pictured are a Navy doctor and Navy nurse attending a patient brought by a medevac helicopter. Two Navy Hospital Corpsmen ready an I.V. while two others watch the helicopter depart. The action occurs on a Navy hospital ship during Korean conflict.

In 1775, the first American naval surgeon, Joseph Harrison, was aboard Alfred when John Paul Jones hoisted the first American flag to fly from a warship.

Today, "Navy Medicine" encompasses a community of 51,000 Navy medical personnel, including 43,000 uniformed care-givers‹nearly 4,000 medical corps, 3,000 nurse corps, 2,600 medical service corps, 1,500 dental corps, 27,000 hospital corpsmen and 3,500 dental technicians. These dedicated, highly skilled professionals provide care for nearly 786,000 active duty Navy and Marine Corps personnel, 886,000 dependents and Navy and Marine Corps retirees and their dependents or survivors numbering 1,126,600‹a total beneficiary population of almost 3,000,000 people.

Navy Medicine operates 33 hospitals, 213 medical clinics, 168 dental clinics and five drug screening laboratories. In addition, the community includes a research and development command, which includes medical and dental health research insititutes, units and laboratories. The community has its own health sciences education and training command which operates four schools.

In war and peace, Navy Medicine has compiled a glorious record of achievements. During the twentieth century, 27 members of the community have been honored for their heroism by the award of the Medal of Honor. Thousands more have been honored by their medical peers for extraordinary achievements in medical research and medical care, in the detection, treatment and prevention of disease, in extending the frontiers of outer space and the inner space of ocean depths, in improving occupational and environmental safety for naval personnel, and in enhancing combat readiness of the Navy.

Sculptor: Antonio Tobias Mendez. Sponsored by members of the Navy Medical Family. In addition, the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, Hoechst-Roussel Pharmaceuticals, and Glaxo, Inc. contributed to the Navy Memorial Foundation toward completion of this bronze-relief.