New DHN Pacific Rim Director comes home to where his Navy Medicine career began

SAN DIEGO - Nearly three decades ago, Rear Adm. Reginald S. Ewing III, a native of Churchville, New York, came to Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) as a pediatric resident, learning to specialize in the care of children, from fragile newborns to teenagers. On Sept. 25, he returned to San Diego to lead Defense Health Network Pacific Rim (DHN-PR), which has oversight of NMCSD and the network's eight other military hospitals and clinics across the West Coast, Guam, and Japan.

During a change of command ceremony at NMCSD, Ewing took the helm of Naval Medical Forces Pacific from Rear Adm. Kevin Brown and stepped into his role as the network's director. Shortly afterward, he toured the medical center's pediatric and neonatal intensive care units, where he once trained.

"Walking back into those hallways, I felt an overwhelming wave of nostalgia, gratitude, and deep pride," Ewing said. "It truly felt like a homecoming."

Ewing first came to NMCSD as a fourth-year medical student and stayed for his pediatric internship after graduating from the University of Rochester School of Medicine in 1997. After a tour as the medical officer aboard USS Germantown (LSD 42) in Sasebo, Japan, he returned to finish his pediatric residency in 2003.

One of his mentors from that time was Dr. Douglas Carbine, a retired Navy captain who now serves as medical director of NMCSD's NICU. Carbine was the attending physician when Ewing rotated through the pediatric ward as a student and he later became Ewing's advisor and mentor during residency, meeting with him regularly to work through a neonatal intensive care textbook cover to cover.

"As a student, I found him to be an enthusiastic learner and very excited to begin his career in Navy Medicine," Carbine said.

Carbine added that Ewing's real strength was problem-solving under pressure, the ability to sort through information in a high intensity environment and respond in an efficient, logical order, which Carbine called Ewing’s “secret gift.”

"I can say I was always happy when I looked at the schedule and saw that he was my assigned resident on a given night of call," he said.

Carbine also discovered that Ewing’s talents weren’t limited to medicine. Back then, in months with five Fridays, the pediatric clinic closed on the fifth Friday afternoon for a friendly game of softball at the command field, and Carbine considered himself the department's softball star.

"A young Reggie Ewing casually stepped up to the plate and without breaking a sweat launched the softball clear to Florida Canyon Road," Carbine said. "I think he did it twice! That was when I quit baseball. Not really, but I was definitely humbled."

For Ewing, the lessons from mentors like Carbine have stayed with him throughout his career.

"My residency taught me that excellence is a team sport," Ewing said. "I learned to listen to our nurses, corpsmen, and families."

He said the clinical foundation he built at NMCSD has been invaluable, but the leadership lessons he learned there, including humility, clear communication, and the responsibility of training the next generation, are what he carries into his role as director every day.

Seeing Carbine again during the visit was "incredibly special," Ewing said.

"Almost 30 years have passed, but his vibrant energy, passion for teaching, and dedication to our tiniest patients haven't waned a bit," he said.

Carbine felt the same way about seeing his former resident return as the network's director. "I was just basking in the moment," Carbine said. "I felt like a proud older brother and was just really happy for him in this moment of his career."

The NICU Ewing walked through after the change of command looks very different from the one he trained in. Carbine said the unit's footprint is now more than four times larger. The old unit featured beds lined up closely in long rows, offering minimal privacy, light control, or room for parents to bond with their babies. A renovation in the late 2000s moved the unit to a pod design, with no more than four beds per room, more space at each bedside, and more privacy for families.

The care itself has evolved just as dramatically. The team now uses gentler, less invasive breathing support as a first measure for infants in respiratory distress, avoiding a breathing tube whenever possible. The unit also offers continuous brain monitoring and total body cooling for newborns with brain injury at birth, a treatment that was still being researched when Ewing was a resident.

"The physical and technological evolution is staggering," Ewing said. "Back during my residency, the spaces were far more cramped and constrained. Today, both units have been redesigned into spacious, cutting-edge environments equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology designed to optimize healing. Yet, amidst all the clinical and structural upgrades, the compassion and heart of the staff felt exactly the same."

Today, the NICU is a 32-bed Level III unit that cares for critically ill infants born as early as 23 weeks, with a board-certified neonatologist on-site around the clock. It also serves as a referral hospital for complicated pregnancies and complex newborn cases from military hospitals across the region and overseas, including Guam, Okinawa, and mainland Japan, so families stationed thousands of miles away can count on NMCSD's NICU when their newborns need it most.

Next door, the PICU cares for children from birth through age 23 with life-threatening illnesses or injuries. Pediatric critical care physicians lead the team, working alongside pediatric subspecialists and surgeons, specially trained nurses and corpsmen, respiratory therapists, a pediatric pharmacist, a nutritionist, and a social worker who helps families through one of the hardest times of their lives.

Beyond the intensive care units, NMCSD's pediatric subspecialty clinic offers military children expert care in fields ranging from cardiology and neurology to hematology and oncology, while the medical center's pediatric surgical teams cover general surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedics, urology, and ear, nose and throat. A social worker and case manager help families coordinate care and connect with services such as TRICARE's Extended Care Health Option, which provides extra support for active-duty families of children with qualifying disabilities.

NMCSD continues to train the next generation of military pediatricians, just as it trained Ewing. Its pediatric residency, part of the Defense Health Agency's graduate medical education program, combines training at NMCSD with rotations at civilian hospitals across Southern California. Residents are prepared for operational assignments like Ewing's tour aboard Germantown and for humanitarian missions around the world, all with the goal of providing military children with exceptional care.

Since leaving San Diego, Ewing's career has taken him from the U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Naval Hospital Naples, Italy, to command of Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, tours as fleet surgeon for U.S. 2nd Fleet and U.S. Fleet Forces Command, and most recently, director of the Defense Health Network National Capital Region in Bethesda, Maryland.

"To return nearly 30 years later to lead Naval Medical Forces Pacific and the Defense Health Network Pacific Rim is a responsibility I do not take lightly," Ewing said. "It drives home a deep sense of stewardship to protect, support, and advance the very platform that built my own career." Returning to lead the network, he added, is "the honor of a lifetime."

His message to the network's staff is simple.

"I want our team to know that I am here to support you so you can focus on the mission," he said. "Whether you are forward-deployed in the Pacific, or at any of our clinics, research facilities or hospitals, my priority is ensuring you have the tools, training, and leadership backing to deliver world-class care."

# # #

Defense Health Network Pacific Rim (DHN-PR) is one of the Defense Health Agency’s nine networks of hospitals and clinics that deliver high-quality health care to more than 144,000 enrolled beneficiaries, supporting major operational units through the Indo-Pacific. The DHN-PR headquarters is located in San Diego, overseeing military hospitals and clinics along the U.S. West Coast and overseas in Guam and Japan.

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.