Robert Swanson (CDR Ret. USPHS) (also known as Swanny or Bob) reflects, “my first connection to being a Physician Assistant (PA) was moonlighting in an emergency department as an emergency room technician,” in Salisbury, Maryland. As an emergency department (ED) technician in a large trauma center, he became interested in the ED’s PAs. He observed that they did the same things as the ED physicians, including covering urgent care. Intrigued, he further explored the PA profession, reaching out to the American Academy of PAs (AAPA), conversing with their staff, reviewing the catalog of PA programs and then applying to several programs.
While waiting to hear if he was accepted to a PA program, Swanson attended Howard University’s Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP). He was accepted to the Alderson Broaddus College PA Program, Philippi, West Virginia, and graduated in 1996.
Swanson was a Commissioned Officer Student Training and Extern Program (COSTEP) and National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Scholarship recipient. He completed his clinical clerkships with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) correctional institution in Morgantown, West Virginia, the West Virginia University Medical Center, and multiple rural clinics and hospitals in North Central West Virginia. His past public safety and law enforcement experience prior to his being an emergency room technician was beneficial.
Upon graduating from PA school, Swanson commissioned with the US Public Health Service and began working at the Eglin Air Force Base Federal Prison Camp in Okaloosa County, Florida. He joined a small pilot group of six BOP facilities that were exploring the primary care provider team model. He worked as a jack-of-all-trades covering directly observed therapy (known as pill lines), sick call, had his own panel of chronic care and general medical patients, as well as urgent and emergent care, and any other d uties assigned at the institution.
With the primary care model pilot group, Robert Swanson provided care for approximately 150 of the 900 inmates for their total healthcare needs. The pilot’s PAs were responsible for all of the work-up in chronic care appointments, working in a collegial setting with the other PAs on staff, the clinical director, and the other healthcare professionals. Swanson was able to assume his patient panel from a retired Navy PA, who provided a warm handoff, thus facilitating his transition to staff PA.
CDR Swanson then worked at the Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, Alabama. Nearing completion of his NHSC obligation, he began caring for the remaining Cubans from the Mariel boatlift during their last stop prior to deportation. Many were maintained in administrative detention, a segregated housing area that was not part of the general population.
Swanson completed his tours with the Federal BOP and transferred to an NHSC loan repayment program in West Virginia, near Winchester Virginia (VA), in the Potomac Highlands of the Shenandoah Valley. He went to a place that was considered a “poster-child” program for NHSC community health centers, met his loan-repayment obligation with them, and moonlighted at a family practice/urgent care in Winchester, VA. CDR Swanson enjoyed that experience because he was practicing rural primary care at a great center with a robust patient panel, which included radiology, onsite lab, pharmacy, dental, and school-based health. He enjoyed the full spectrum of care, which included prenatal and mental health care, at multiple locations to increase patient access. He traveled to and served the school’s pediatrics population for 3 years.
He returned to the Federal BOP with the USPHS for the retirement credit benefit, promoting from Lieutenant Junior Grade to Lieutenant. CDR Swanson served a total of four tours with the Federal BOP during his career.
Swanson worked with the Indian Health Service in Belcourt, North Dakota where he stated, “It was the coldest place I had ever lived”, but the work was terrific. Unfortunately, it required leaving his family back East, and it was a short tour.
CDR Swanson went from the IHS to the Department of Homeland Security where he was on assignment with a small cadre of PHS officers who staffed a bio surveillance watch desk at the National Operations Center (NOC) in Washington, DC. The NOC was located at an old U.S. Navy base near the American University campus. He tracked biological and disease events, weapons of mass destruction and other kinds of health-related incidents around the world.
Robert Swanson and his DHS team contributed to briefings of the DHS Secretary and the White House. In 2009, there was a novel health event: the beginning of the H1N1 (otherwise known as the Swine Flu) outbreak.
With the OHA Watch Desk, Swanson also tracked the earthquake in Haiti (2010). He was deployed to the unaccompanied children mission on the U.S. southern border in Texas, thus supporting DHS Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at their border detention facilities. During that deployment, he worked to set up local provider and detention facility healthcare contractual agreements, which ended up saving the Federal government approximately $3,000,000.
After DHS, he transferred to the USPHS Commissioned Corps Headquarters Medical Affairs Branch, where he provided medical review boards of all types, line of duty determinations (regarding death while on active duty), fitness for duty evaluations, and medical retirement disability determinations for active duty USPHS officers
CDR Swanson accepted what turned out to be his last assignment with the Defense Health Agency (DHA) in 2016, at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital (now Alexander T. Augusta Military Medical Center, in Northern Virginia.) During this assignment, he was detailed to the following: the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, the Co-Occurring Partial Hospitalization (COOPH) Multidisciplinary Intensive Mental Health Clinic, and the Residential Treatment Facility which provided 28-day inpatient treatment for active-duty addiction medicine patients from all branches of the uniformed services. There were many collateral duties during this final assignment, which was concurrent with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Robert Swanson retired from the USPHS on December 1st of 2022, and returned to West Virginia shortly thereafter. His USPHS career was fraught with many challenges, but also had many enjoyable experiences.
CDR Swanson service to the PA profession includes becoming Secretary for the Public Health Service Academy of PAs, volunteering with the West Virginia Association of PAs (WVAPA) and the Maryland Academy of PAs (MDAPA). He also performed advocacy work to the Maryland State House and for the AAPA on Capitol Hill.
During Swanson’s career, he received numerous awards and letters of appreciation from multiple Federal agencies and charitable entities. He enjoyed a career of consistently being able to provide medical care to medically underserved populations. CDR Swanson said he would like to be remembered as someone who always left his assignments better than he found them.
In his leisure time, Swanson enjoys golf, racket sports, spiritual pursuits, short hikes, reading, and spending time with family and friends.
Acknowledgments
This biography was written by CAPT Robin Hunter-Buskey and CDR Robert Swanson and was submitted to the Society in March 2025. Photographs are courtesy of Robert Swanson.
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