Volume 8, Issue 19· December 16, 2013 

 www.usuhs.edu 

Learning to Care for Those in Harm’s Way 
Sharon Willis 

Deputy Vice President for External Affairs and Managing Editor

Gwendolyn Smalls 

Chief, Media Affairs 

Master Sgt. Oshawn Jefferson 

Deputy Chief, Media Affairs 

Christine Creenan-Jones

Editor and Layout Artist 

MC2 Brittney Cannady

Writer 

The Pulse is printed by USU’s 

Duplicating Center. 

Production

The Pulse is funded by the Department of 

Defense and published by the Uniformed 

Services University. It is authorized for 

members of the U.S. military services, 

USU alumni, faculty and staff. Contents 

of the Pulse are not necessarily the official 

views of, or endorsed by, the DoD or 

USU. Appearance of anything resembling 

advertising in this publication does not 

constitute endorsement by the DoD, USU 

or Pulse staff members. 

The contents of this publication shall be 

made available for use or patronage 

without regard to race, color, religion, 

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physical handicap, political affiliation or 

any other non-merit factor of the user or 

patron. 

Editorial content is edited, prepared and 

provided by the USU Office of External 

Affairs. The editor reserves the right to 

edit articles to conform to DoD policy and 

Associated Press style. All photos are 

DoD photos unless otherwise indicated. 

The Pulse will be published bi-weekly on 

Mondays. The deadline for submissions 

is at 4 p.m. Tuesday prior to the 

publication date. Submissions can be 

sent to Christine.creenanjones@usuhs.edu or 301-295-3338. 

Chair of Surgery to serve on national face, 

hand transplant committee 

By Sharon Holland, managing editor 

On the cover 

Marine Staff Sgt. James Sides tests a new prosthetic control system currently under evaluation at the 

Uniformed Services University. Read more about 

this state-of-the-art system on page 3. 

2 The Pulse The Pulse · The Official USU Newsletter Photo by Sharon Holland 

 Capt. (Dr.) Eric Elster, a U.S. 

Navy transplant surgeon and 

chair of the Norman M. Rich Department of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University, is 

among 18 experts named as 

members of a new committee to 

develop standards and policies 

for face and hand transplantation. 

 The Vascularized Composite 

Allograft Transplantation Committee was established by the 

United Network for Organ Sharing, the nation’s organ transplant system. Vascularized composite allograft involves transplanting multiple structures 

such as bone, muscle, blood vessels, ligaments, nerves and skin. 

While face and hand transplants 

are currently the most widely 

known VCA procedures, other 

types of VCA transplantation 

may be developed in the future. 

The VCA Transplantation Committee will determine which organ combinations will be covered in policy, develop national 

standards and processes for 

VCA donor consent and recovery, develop a system to prioritize VCA transplant candidates 

for available organs, develop a 

national set of clinical data to be 

collected on VCA transplants, 

and establish institutional 

standards for hospitals that perform VCA transplants. 

 In addition to his duties as professor and surgery department 

chair, Elster is also director of the 

Surgical Critical Care Institute, a 

joint military and civilian program developing clinical decision 

support tools for critically ill patients, and a staff transplant surgeon at the Walter Reed National 

Military Medical Center. He completed a solid organ transplantation fellowship at the National 

Institutes of Health and was then 

assigned to the Naval Medical Research Center in Silver Spring, 

Md., where he directed a translational research program focused 

on the development of improved 

diagnostics and therapies for serious traumatic injuries, transplantation and advanced operative 

imaging. Elster was last deployed 

as a surgeon and Director of Surgical Services at the NATO Role 3 

Military Medical Unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He is a fellow of 

the American College of Surgeons 

and a member of the Society of 

University Surgeons, American 

Society of Transplant Surgeons, 

and the Southern Surgical Association. 

Navy Capt. (Dr.) Eric Elster 

Courtesy photo 

Save the Date 

Town Hall Meeting 

February 6, 2014 

Sanford Auditorium at 1 p.m. 
February 3, 2014 3

 Marine Staff Sgt. James Sides 

can pick up a soda with his right 

hand, take a sip and place it on 

the counter with relative ease. 

Although seemingly prosaic, this 

routine activity is a huge breakthrough for Sides, and the rest of 

his brothers and sisters – 1,500 

American war veterans who’ve 

lost a limb during their tours in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. 

 For them, the nuances of everyday life – cooking dinner, driving 

a car, texting a friend – can range 

from challenging to downright 

impossible, even with a prosthetic limb. 

 That’s because the control systems in most prostheses restore 

some function but do not move 

intuitively or with the same fluidity as a real hand or foot, even 

high-tech ones like the arm Sides 

received after a bomb explosion 

in Afghanistan left him partially 

blind and badly injured. 

 Shortly after his right arm was 

amputated, Sides was fitted with 

a prosthetic limb at Walter Reed 

National Military Medical Center. 

Even though his prosthesis was 

state-of-the-art, he could only 

perform one range of motion at a 

time. This included opening and 

closing his hand or rotating his 

wrist – but never both at once or 

in rapid succession. Furthermore, 

Sides had to manually move his 

thumb, and his entire prosthesis 

was prone to frequent, unpredictable malfunctions. 

 “With my original myo 

(myoelectronic arm prostheses), 

the sensors sat on the surface of 

the skin. My sweat would interfere with the signal and my arm 

would go haywire,” Sides said. “It 

became such a nuisance, I would 

just quit wearing it in the summer altogether.” 

 In search of a better alternative, 

Sides agreed to test out a newly 

designed upper limb prosthetic 

system that utilizes Implantable 

Myoelectric Sensors (IMES ®) 

developed by the Alfred Mann 

Foundation and currently undergoing an FDA trial thanks to collaborative efforts between the 

Uniformed Services University 

and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. 

 Dr. Paul Pasquina, chair of the 

Department of Physical Medicine 

and Rehabilitation at USU, is the 

principal investigator for the 

IMES system – implantable electrode technology that instantly 

translates muscle signals into 

hand movements. 

 “I was thrilled with the idea of 

collaborating with AMF and leading the IMES project. It holds 

great promise for the future of 

amputee care, and overcomes 

several of the flaws that exist with 

the control systems that are currently available for our wounded 

warriors,” Pasquina said. 

 Now, with his new sensors intact, Sides can move his prosthetic hand, rotate his wrist and control thumb movements in tandem. The system’s sensors were 

also surgically implanted deep 

inside his muscle tissue, so Sides 

doesn’t have to worry about losing connectivity during a rain 

storm or on a hot summer day. 

 Moreover, the implantable sensors allow Sides to move his prosthetic hand naturally, with lifelike dexterity, even. 

 “It feels very intuitive. It basically works the same way as my 

other hand,” he said. 

 Sides is the first person in the 

world to receive this sophisticated technology, but the research 

team has IRB and FDA approval 

to recruit two additional subjects 

this year. 

 “We believe that this technology 

has the potential to revolutionize 

the care for individuals with amputations,” Pasquina said.

New prosthetic control system revolutionizes amputee care

By Christine Creenan-Jones, editor 

Marine Staff Sgt. James Sides is part of a clinical trial at the Uniformed 

Services University to test a new prosthetic control system called the 

Implantable Myoelectric Sensor System, under the leadership of Dr. 

Paul Pasquina, chair of USU’s Department of Physical Medicine and 

Rehabilitation. 
4 The Pulse The Pulse · The Official USU Newsletter 

Do you have a story for the Pulse? 

Submit your ideas to christine.creenan-jones@usuhs.edu. 

Pulse staff members are always looking for new leads about 

the people, programs, research and scholarship at the 

Uniformed Services University. 

Dean Kellermann hosts first 

SoM Town Hall of 2014 

By Liz Brasington, NCDMPH 

 “The state of the school is very 

sound,” said Dr. Arthur Kellermann, dean of the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the 

Uniformed Services University, 

during his Town Hall Meeting, 

Jan. 22. 

 After a year marked by government-wide furloughs, sequestration and salary freezes, USU is 

moving forward with its unique 

mission, Kellermann said. 

 He also emphasized the importance of building partnerships 

with agencies that fall under the 

Military Health System as well as 

outside organizations to further 

expand USU’s reach and cultivate 

support for the university. 

 These partnerships and USU’s 

research and education programs 

should also be highlighted in the 

public eye, according to Kellermann. 

 “Anonymity does us no good 

and may imperil our existence. 

People need to know what we do,” 

he said. 

 Kellermann recounted several of 

USU’s large accomplishments 

over the past 40 years, which include an impressive research portfolio, educating 25 percent of the 

medical officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Public Health 

Service, and sponsoring innovative academic programs with a 

unique focus on military medicine. 

 “We are the leadership academy 

of the MHS and that should be in 

our DNA with every student we 

teach,” he said. “We have a vital 

mission.” 

 Two centers at the Uniformed Services University 

collaborated on a set of curriculum recommendations recently to empower educators 

working with disaster health 

professionals. Experts at the 

National Center for Disaster 

Medicine and Public Health 

and the Center for the Study 

of Traumatic Stress worked 

together to identify resources 

and training activities that 

could benefit disaster health 

professionals. 

 The project, “Curriculum 

Recommendations for Disaster Health Professionals: Disaster Behavioral Health,” was 

spearheaded by Kelly Gulley, 

a project associate at 

NCDMPH, and Dr. Brian 

Flynn, a disaster behavioral 

health expert at CSTS. They 

worked with other USU experts to build content and 

identify learning outcomes for 

the NCDMPH/CSTS project. 

 “Having been in this field for 

many years, I approached the 

project by thinking, ‘What 

would I have wanted to know 

at various parts of my career?’” Flynn said. 

 The NCDMPH/CSTS recommendations feature resources 

in the following areas of disaster behavioral health: Defining Disaster Behavioral 

Health, The Disaster Environment, Key Partners, Individual and Collective Response to 

Disaster, Population with Special Needs and At Risk Individuals, Providing Care, and 

Playing Additional Important 

Roles. 

 Furthermore, the peerreviewed curriculum recommendations are adaptable, so 

it can meet the needs and circumstances of the learning 

community at hand. For example, an instructor can use 

the NCDMPH/CSTS recommendations to create one lecture or an entire course on a 

specific topic. 

 “One of the things that excites me about the curriculum 

recommendations is that they 

have such a wide utility and 

can be suited to many needs,” 

Flynn said. 

 The project – a second collaboration for the NCDMPH, 

who partnered with USU’s 

Graduate School of Nursing 

last year to make recommendations for disaster health 

professionals working with 

pediatric populations – is also 

the result of USU’s collegial 

environment, according to 

project leaders. 

 “I think USU attracts people 

who are interested in collaboration and see linkages between our different interests,” 

Flynn said. “These kinds of 

collaborations are harder to 

accomplish in other universities.” 

Collaboration between USU centers produces curriculum recommendations 

By MC2 Brittney Cannady, writer 
February 3, 2014 5

Awards ceremony lauds members of Class of 2016 

By Christine Creenan-Jones, editor

 The F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the 

Uniformed Services University lauded fifteen 

medical students and four professors at the Academic Collegium Honoring the Class of 2016 on 

Jan. 16. 

 Several awards were presented during the 

event, including the inaugural Physician in Society Award, which recognizes consistent exceptional performance in the clinical portion of the preclerkship curriculum. It was awarded to Army 

2nd Lts. Evan Baines and Nicholas Szuflita. 

 The Distinguished Academic Performance 

Award – given to medical students who achieve 

honors in at least three modules – was awarded 

to Army 2nd Lts. Ian Kelly, Joshua Krieger, Alexandra Shams, Nicholas Szuflita, Air Force 2nd Lt. 

Haydn Roberts, and Navy Ensign Piotr Wisniewski. 

 The Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence – 

given to medical students who achieve honors in 

at least five modules – was awarded to Army 2nd 

Lts. Kaitlin Campbell, Michael Pavio, Raymond 

(Mike) Meyer, Air Force 2nd Lts. Alexander Nissen, Matthew Ward, Donovan Reed and Navy Ensign David Lin. 

 Finally, the winners of the student-sponsored 

faculty awards were announced at the collegium. 

 They included Dr. David Mears and Air Force 

Maj. (Dr.) Brian Neubauer, who were named Best 

Module Directors, Air Force Maj. (Dr.) Terrill 

Tops, who was named Best Pathology Lab Instructor, and Dr. Edward Mitre, who was named 

Best Lecturer by the Class of 2016.

Several faculty and Class of 2016 students were recognized at an academic collegium recently. Awards were 

given for outstanding academic performance and inspired teaching. 

Photo by Thomas Balfour 

USU’s Southern Region Office gets a new home 

By Christine Creenan-Jones, editor

 The Uniformed Services University has a broad footprint 

with programs at sites throughout the country. The Southern 

Region office – which oversees 

USU’s Postgraduate Dental College – is one of them. 

 The Texas-based office was 

established in 2009, shortly before USU began offering master’s degrees to military dentists 

in the Navy and the Air Force. 

 Over the years, the PDC has 

expanded into a tri-service program with a multidisciplinary 

scope. Additionally, due to 

growth within USU, the TriService Center for Oral Health 

Studies and the Military Training Network have also relocated 

to San Antonio from Bethesda 

and have joined the Southern 

Region office. 

 As a result of this expansion, 

the Southern Region office recently moved into a larger, more 

permanent space on Fort Sam 

Houston in San Antonio. 

 “Thus far, we have had the 

good fortune of being in space 

loaned by the San Antonio Military Health System located at 

the Lincoln Center in San Antonio. However, as our mission 

has grown, and as new programs have come under the purview of the Southern Region office, the need from a permanent 

home has become obvious,” said 

Rebecca Patterson, an administrative officer for the Southern 

Region office. “This move allows USU to have a presence in 

San Antonio, where we have numerous stakeholders in the mission of training military 

healthcare professionals.” 
6 The Pulse The Pulse · The Official USU Newsletter 

Countdown to commencement: A look at the Class of 2014

Air Force 2nd Lt. Stephen Kasteler, School of Medicine 

By Christine Creenan-Jones, editor 

Countdown to Commencement Trivia Question #1

 These two Public Health Service officers represent an important 

piece of history at the Uniformed Services University. Who are 

they? And what is their milestone achievement? 

 The first person to correctly answer both questions and e-mail 

their responses to Christine.Creenan-Jones@usuhs.edu wins a 

large coffee and donut courtesy of the USU cafeteria. 

Courtesy photo 

 Air Force 2nd Lt. Stephen 

Kasteler has always been ambitious. As a young boy, he wanted 

to be a doctor, businessman, 

teacher, pilot and lawyer. These 

goals – while far reaching – were 

not fleeting. At 29, he’s already 

explored many of the careers 

that captured his childhood fancy, including one that led him to 

the Uniformed Services University. 

 Long before he began medical 

school at USU, Kasteler had already started an international 

holding company for real estate 

investments. He was also a 

member of Teach for America, a 

program that trains corps members for teaching positions in low

-income, mostly urban communities across the country. 

 Although Kasteler enjoyed 

teaching at Terry Parker High 

School in Jacksonville, Fla., his 

science lectures began to awaken 

old ambitions within himself. 

 “One of the classes I taught was 

high school zoology, and I had to 

build the curriculum from the 

ground up. I used human anatomy as a model to help my students understand how animal 

body systems work,” he said. “As 

I was doing this, I realized that 

even though I liked business and 

teaching, I wasn’t going to be 

happy if I wasn’t studying the 

human body, and that realization 

brought me right back to medicine.” 

 With a renewed focus, Kasteler 

began looking into medical 

schools, when his neighbor – a 

pilot in the Navy – introduced 

him to a USU student named Ian 

Uber, who was completing a 

family medicine rotation in Jacksonville. 

 “We spent a lot of time with 

Ian while he was in Florida, and 

he shared many stories about his 

time at USU, which he really 

seemed to enjoy,” said Kasteler. 

“It was good to get an insider’s 

perspective, since I had previously considered USU and was 

drawn to the idea of military service anyway.” 

 Kasteler applied and was accepted at USU in 2010. Four 

“tough” years later, he’s finishing 

up the final requirements of his 

program before graduating in 

May. If all goes according to 

plan, Kasteler will continue his 

journey into military medicine 

while completing a transitionalyear internship at David Grant 

Medical Center in California. 

 “I hope to eventually become 

an emergency medicine physician, because I want to help people in their times of crises,” he 

said. 

 In doing so, Kasteler will also 

be fulfilling another goal, one he 

made decades ago when he was 

still a young boy with big aspirations.

Air Force 2nd Lt. Stephen Kasteler is finishing up his final year of medical school at the Uniformed Services University. Before enrolling at 

USU, he was a member of Teach for America. 

Courtesy photo 
February 3, 2014 7

USU receives citation during Energy Savings Week

Attention all USU faculty

The Faculty Senate is currently seeking nominations for the 2014 Faculty Senate president-elect, 

secretary/treasurer, and senators. 

Interested faculty are encouraged to contact Dr. Susanne Gibbons, chair of the Faculty Senate’s Nominations and Elections Committee, via e-mail at susanne.gibbons@usuhs.edu for a candidate form. 

 The Uniformed Services University received the Maryland 

Department of Energy citation 

as part of the Naval Support Activity Bethesda’s Energy Saves 

Week. The citation was presented by Devon Dodson, chief of 

staff for the Maryland Energy 

Administration, Dec. 16. 

 The citation marks a successful 

partnership between NSAB and 

USU and its dedication to educating personnel on proper energy use at home and work. 

 “Every single program being 

offered during Energy Week 

contained energy education. 

We’re hoping that through this, 

people can see firsthand just 

how easy it is to save energy at 

home and work and what a great 

benefit it is to everyone,” said 

Diane Elsberg, who helped organize Energy Saves Week for 

NSAB. 

 “The entire format has been 

enhanced,” said Elsberg. “This 

year we are taking a collaborative effort with involvement 

from NSAB, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center 

and the Uniformed Services 

University of the Health Sciences with the goal of promoting 

energy conservation throughout 

the entire installation.” 

 While Walter Reed took the 

lead on energy saving efforts 

across NSAB, USU also did its 

part by implementing a system 

of checks and balances for the 

massive amount of equipment 

that is used at the university. 

 “Facilities ensures that Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, is incorporated with each and every project for maximum energy efficiency,” said Cheryl King, director of Facilities at USU. 

 Several improvements aimed 

at university conservation included installing water-saving 

water closets, HVAC systems 

from pneumatic controls to direct digital controls, variable frequency drives on all pumps and 

LED lighting on the roadway on 

Palmer Road, which has become 

the standard for roadway lighting throughout the base. Rooms 

in the university were also 

equipped with sensors to prevent lights from burning all day 

and night. 

 “Due to the outstanding support of Dr. Rice and Mr. Rice 

for approving and appropriating 

funds, facilities has been fortunate to become a leader in energy efficiency on the base,” said 

King. 

By MC2 Brittney Cannady, writer 

The Uniformed Services University was recognized by the Maryland Energy Administration for campus-wide energy-saving programs that include upgraded HVAC systems, the use of LED lighting and more.