FORT EUSTIS, VA – Dr. Adam Edward Lang, Clinical Pharmacist working at McDonald Army Health Center (MCAHC), was one of 46 AMEDD officers and civilians representing the Medical Corps, Nurse Corps, Medical Services Corp, Civilian Corps, Dental Corps, Veterinary Corps, and Specialists Corp, were selected to attend the highly competitive annual Army Medicine Iron Major Week course. August 9-11, 2021, the course took place at the Defense Health Headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia.
The purpose of the Army Medicine Iron Major Week Course is to identify outstanding Army Medicine junior field grade leaders from the Army who have consistently modeled the core Army Values and Warrior Ethos in the execution of their duties and who demonstrated the skills, attributes, and potential required to become AMEDD future leaders. Leaders are nominated by their supervisor or consultants, endorsed by their commander, and selected by a senior board from their respective Corps.
The five-day leader development opportunity exposes the selectees to various interagency activities and discussions with subject matter experts and senior leaders. The course will also help build the experience and knowledge needed to address future complex issues within Army medicine and the Department of Defense.
“It was the first year that civilians would be able to receive the honor, and I heard that being selected and being able to tour the most important places in Washington DC to meet and learn from different military and other national leaders was invaluable,” said Lang.
Lang, who hails from South Dartmouth, Massachusetts moved to Virginia in 2017 stated. “I chose MCAHC because it just felt like the right fit. It was a good opportunity to evolve my clinical practice while also allowing for creativity to help improve our population’s health,” said Lang.
Dr. Heather Guntherberg, Chief of Health Management and Deputy Chief of Pharmacy Services at McDonald Army Health Center states describes Dr. Lang as a great asset to the MCAHC team.
“Over the past four years, I have had the honor of witnessing Dr. Adam Lang focus, grow, and evolve. He constantly is moving forward with new goals and higher standards. His motivation for our entire team has led to strategic successes in providing pharmacotherapy to our patient population. Dr. Lang’s dedication to readiness and tobacco cessation in our AIT population is sobering. His passion for improving the health care of our patients and soldiers is outstanding” said Guntherberg.
Lang serves as a clinical pharmacist at Troop Medical Services, seeing advanced individual training soldiers in a clinic and manages treatment for various disease states, including nicotine dependence, clotting disorders, chronic pain, and diabetes. Lang also performs auricular acupuncture regularly.
Lang said, “Having a better understanding of how the U.S. government and Army as a whole each function, and how leaders from the top down make decisions and influence change. This understanding can help me make a more significant impact and be more effective at advancing and improving health outcomes.
Dr. Lane is currently in the process of publishing the final data related to his research on tobacco and nicotine use in the U.S. Army training population from 2019. The data and publications have helped influence a nicotine-free training policy at Fort Eustis and established a framework for reproducibility.
“I plan to research long-term outcomes in this population to enact this type of policy military-wide. I also just started to collaborate with one of our bigger brigades on post to find novel ways to improve their medical deployability, as well as to curb their nicotine product use,” said Lang.
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