Rear Admiral Darin K. Via

Surgeon General; Chief, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery

Rear Admiral Darin K. Via

Rear Admiral Darin K. Via is a native of Illinois. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Millikin University. Via enlisted in the U. S. Navy Reserve in 1985 as a Hospital Corpsman. In 1987 he entered active duty as an Ensign at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science, where he earned a Doctor of Medicine in 1991. Via completed a Master of Health Care Delivery Science from Dartmouth College in 2014.

Via’s professional training includes a transitional internship and anesthesiology residency at the National Naval Medical Center and a trauma anesthesia fellowship at the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, University of Maryland. He is qualified as an Undersea And Diving Medical Officer.

He has served in various positions throughout Navy Medicine to include staff anesthesiologist, National Naval Medical Center and Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP); vice chairman, Uniformed Services University; Chairman, Department of Anesthesiology, NMCP; Operative Support Service Line Leader, NMCP; director for Surgical Services, NMCP; deputy commander, NMCP; and commanding officer, NMCP.

Operationally, he served as department head, Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Two; command surgeon, Combat Support Squadron Eight; department head USNS Comfort (TAH-20) during Operation Noble Eagle; department head, Fleet Hospital Three, 1st Force Service Support Group (1st FSSG), Camp Viper, Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom; and commanding officer, NATO Role Three, Multi-national Medical Unit and Commander, Task Force Medical South, Kandahar, Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Via also served as the command surgeon, U.S. Pacific Fleet, where he directed and oversaw all Force Health Protection, warfighter mission medical readiness, and strategic medical efforts in the Pacific. Via was selected the first Navy medical officer to serve as U.S. Central Command surgeon responsible for all Health Services Support in theater as the sole advisor to the Commander on all medical matters in the most kinetic combatant command.

Via’s Flag tours include serving as deputy chief, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery for Operations, Plans and Readiness and he was appointed as the first medical flag officer to stand up Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) N44 as the single resource sponsor for expeditionary medical capabilities. He additionally served currently as commander, Naval Medical Forces Atlantic and as the senior market manager of the Tidewater Military Health System.

Via began serving as the Navy deputy surgeon general; deputy chief, U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery; and director, Medical Resources, Plans and Policy Division, N0931, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations Jun. 30, 2022.

His professional activities include being a certified physician executive and clinical professor of Anesthesiology, Uniformed Services University. He has prior service as an American Board of Anesthesiology Oral Board examiner and has held numerous leadership positions within the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the Uniformed Services Society of Anesthesiologists.

Last Updated: 6 December 2023

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