When Col. John Buterbaugh took the helm as the command surgeon at Air Force Reserve Command in late summer 2018, he wanted to make some bold changes to improve processes for the 70,000 Reserve Citizen Airmen serving around the world. In an Aug. 28 letter, Buterbaugh outlined four initiatives to increase medical readiness across the command, including eliminating the medical case backlog, removing the mental health requirement differences between active duty and Reservists, providing more full-time medical staff to local units and increasing decision-making ability on medical cases at the wing and squadron levels. Of the four initiatives, aligning mental health requirements with active duty has seen the most progress. For more details, see this Air Force press release.
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