The Physician to Soldier Pipeline · Episode 11 of 14 · 23 min
The Yellow Berets
From 1953 to 1973 the National Institutes of Health took a few hundred newly qualified physicians a year and commissioned them into the Public Health Service, which discharged their draft liability. The 'Yellow Berets' produced a remarkable cohort of physician-scientists, including ten Nobel laureates. But the program was built to manage a draft, shown by the fact that only four of 1,577 associates were women.
Who's who
- Anthony S. FauciNIH associate who spoke of the nickname as both joke and insult
- Michael S. Brown1968 associate; shared the 1985 Nobel Prize for the LDL receptor
- Joseph L. Goldstein1968 associate; shared the 1985 Nobel Prize for the LDL receptor
- Harold Varmus1968 associate; shared the 1989 Nobel Prize on retroviral oncogenes
- Robert Lefkowitz1968 associate; won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Alexander D. Langmuir+1 more episodeFounder of the Epidemic Intelligence Service in 1951
- Harry S. Truman+14 more episodesPresident whose 1945 order declared the Commissioned Corps a military service
Where it happens
- National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland+1 more episodeHome of the Associate Training Program
- Atlanta, Georgia+10 more episodesHome of the Communicable Disease Center that housed the Epidemic Intelligence Service
Timeline
- June 21, 1945Executive Order 9575 declares the Commissioned Corps a military service
- July 1951Epidemic Intelligence Service enrolls its first class of 22
- 1953The Associate Training Program is established at NIH
- Summer 1968Brown, Goldstein, Varmus and Lefkowitz begin in the same intake
- 1971Applications from eligible graduates reach nearly 80 percent, up from about 20 percent in 1963
- July 1, 1973The Doctor Draft expires
Still debated
The statute by which Commissioned Corps service discharged the draft obligation could not be pinned to a section, and it is unverified that Peace Corps physician service did the same. Totals and the Nobel count vary by window and definition.
Connected episodes in other series
Disease Detectives: The Founding of the EIS (1951)The U.S. Public Health Service · Episode 4Also features Alexander D. Langmuir
How White Evangelicals Moved From Democrat to RepublicanA Wall of Separation · Episode 7Also features Harry S. Truman
Standard Oil's Secret Cartel With Nazi GermanyBackyard Empire: The U.S. in Latin America · Episode 3Also features Harry S. Truman
The Good War's Fine Print: The WWII Draft's Forgotten LosersGreeting: America and the Draft · Episode 5Also features Harry S. Truman