Chief of Staff to U.S. Surgeon General to Speak at UW April 24

Capt. Joel Dulaigh, chief of staff to the U.S. surgeon general, has been named the 2019 Whitney Distinguished Lecturer for the University of Wyoming’s Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing.

He will speak at the school’s annual Research and Scholarship Day, a free event open to the public. The daylong event is Wednesday, April 24, in the Wyoming Union Center Yellowstone Ballroom.

Dulaigh’s presentation, "Public Health in America: The Priorities of the U.S. Surgeon General,” will begin at 8:15 a.m.

Dulaigh is a career officer and an acute care nurse practitioner in the United States Public Health Service. He currently serves as chief of staff to Surgeon General Jerome Adams.

Dulaigh began his uniformed service career in 1988 with the Army National Guard before accepting a commission as a nurse officer in the Navy in 1995. After his first assignment at Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, Va., he was selected for duty under instruction and was sent to the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, after which he was assigned to Naval Hospital Guam. From there, he served as a nurse with the White House Medical Unit from 2002-05.

Following his tour at the White House, Dulaigh resigned his active-duty commission and transferred to the Naval Reserve, where he served four years while working in critical care and cardiology at St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo. In 2009, he returned to active duty with a branch transfer to the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service. He has served over 30 years in uniform.

Immediately prior to his current assignment, Dulaigh was the director of diving medicine for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). His tenure there included chairing the NOAA Diving Medical Review Board; advisory member of the NOAA Diving Control and Safety Board; member of the NOAA Health Services Executive Leadership team; and co-director of the NOAA/Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society Physicians Training in Diving Medicine program. Additionally, he has been a member of Rapid Deployment Force Team 3, serving as the deputy group supervisor for the midlevel provider group and deploying to Hurricane Irene, Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Maria.

Dulaigh received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Mesa State College, Grand Junction, Colo., in 1993. In 2000, he obtained his nurse practitioner degree from the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center. He is an active member of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) and, in 2017, he was inducted as a Fellow of the AANP.

Visit www.uwyo.edu/nursing/chief-of-staff-to-us-surgeon-general-to-speak.html for more information.