Presenting at the American College of Preventive Medicine's annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., in February 2012, Teresa Skojac, M.D.,  discussed 'Tobacco Use at the Atlanta VAMC-The Sacred Cow.'

U.S. Air Force Col. Teresa M. Skojac, M.D., M.P.H., M.C., F.S., is not a traditional public health graduate student or medical resident, but her mission to learn more about preventive medicine brought her to the Georgia Department of Public Health, where she recently completed a medical rotation with the department's Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit (EPR).

"My coming to Georgia was a mutual decision between myself and the U.S. Air Force," she said. "The USAF has its own preventive medicine residency program at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, and I was considered for it as well as a civilian position. However, we agreed that I would benefit from the opportunity to see preventive medicine and public health in the private sector. I was selected into a private sector program at Emory University School of Medicine."

J. Patrick O'Neal, M.D., Director of Health Protection, spent several hours with Skojac as she shadowed him during her 30-day rotation.  After training several residents in public health, O'Neal felt Skojac excelled in a class all by herself.

"Dr. Teresa Skojac brought a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience to her rotation with DPH/EPR," said O'Neal. "Preceptors probably learned more from Dr. Skojac than she from preceptors."

Skojac said she learned an immense amount during her time with the department.

Teresa Skojac, M.D., wears the paper rank as her promotion to colonel in the U.S. Air Force is announced. By tradition, they apply large paper rank on you so everyone notices you have been promoted.

"What started as a rotation with Dr. O'Neal with a focus on Emergency Preparedness, ended up with a 30,000 foot view of public health at the state level. I shadowed his every move for a month, sitting in on his meetings, scouring his paperwork before he signed it, following him to the capital to watch bills of public health significance get debated and sitting in on working groups with the Department of Education on a school-based flu initiative," said Skojac. "I got an overview of the scope and breadth of Public Health at the state level, which I learned really operates at the cusp between politics and policy development both at the state and federal levels and implementation at the community or county levels.  As a generalist, this excited me.  Every day was different, filled with various challenges and opportunities to improve the health and wellness of the people of the state of Georgia."

At Emory Rollins School of Public Health, Skojac nears the end of completing her residency in preventive medicine in June 2012.  She will be trained in two specialties-family medicine and preventive medicine.

Her next military and medical assignment will take her to the nation's capital where she will serve as chief of the medical staff at Andrews Air Force Base. Skojac will be in charge of the quality of health care provided by 200 medical providers.

"I am hoping in my spare time to teach preventive medicine to family medicine residents of the capital consortium and hopefully continue to advocate for preventive medicine and public health within the USAF."

-Story by Connie F. Smith, DPH Communications