Tennessee to the World, Graduates Head to Armed Forces

Dr. Emily McCulley's parents pin into place her new U.S. Navy lieutenant insignia during a University of Tennessee Health Sciences commencement ceremony this spring.

Emily McCulley grew up in Memphis, about as far from a coastal naval base as you can get. Then she enrolled in medical school and started asking a different kind of question.

"I kind of wanted more out of life," she says. "Adventure."

This spring, Emily McCulley, MD, crossed the commencement stage at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences as both a physician and newly promoted U.S. Navy lieutenant. Her parents stood on either side of her, pinning her new insignia into place. The moment was quiet and enormous at the same time.

And she wasn't alone on that stage.

The Scholarship Is Only the Beginning

Eight graduates at UT Health Sciences earned military promotions this spring through the Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP), five from the College of Medicine and three from the College of Dentistry.

Students commission into a branch of the military when they enter the program, then are promoted upon graduation. The scholarship covers tuition, fees, books, health insurance and a monthly living stipend. In exchange, graduates commit to one year of active-duty service for each year of scholarship support, with a minimum of three years.

"I was almost more excited to be in the military than to be a dentist."

Captain Jacob Tomassetti, DDS, Class of 2026

For new alum Jacob Tomassetti, DDS, the financial picture wasn't the main draw. A military kid born at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, Dr. Tomassetti grew up moving from base to base, watching his father, James Tomassetti, DMD, serve 11 years in the U.S. Army before establishing an orthodontic practice in Wisconsin. When Jake began at the College of Dentistry, the scholarship felt less like a financial decision and more like a return.

"I was almost more excited to be in the military than to be a dentist," he says, adding how the purpose it gave him - graduating into the military and entering the same industry he would grow in but now for a bigger cause - made him more eager about the whole process.

A Navigator for Military Students

Students like Drs. McCulley and Tomassetti don't arrive at these opportunities without support. Mark MacNamara, director of Military Affiliated Students and Strategic Initiatives in the Office of Student Success, is a Navy veteran who served 25 years aboard five warships, deployed to the Arabian Gulf and the Pacific, and completed two tours at the Pentagon before joining UT Health Sciences.

In Tennessee, with its strong Volunteer State spirit, support isn't only institutional but cultural, MacNamara says. "One of the things we do a good job of is making sure people don't feel unappreciated for wearing a uniform. Because of the state we're in, and the place we work, we're a military-friendly environment, and that volunteer theme runs true. It's not just a slogan. It really does resonate."

Dr. Tomassetti connected with MacNamara early in his time at UT Health Sciences and hasn't stopped sending fellow HPSP students his way since. "Ever since I met Mr. MacNamara, he's been able to help. I think his role as a sort of central figure in this broader concept of the school, of all these military members, that's a very important thing.

"I've been referring everyone I know who's doing HPSP to him, to at least go over there and talk to him."

MacNamara says the reason to support military-focused students across healthcare is straightforward. "You're getting somebody who has already been building communicative skills, they already have leadership, they already have resilience built in, just by the virtue of what they've been doing."

The Tennessee Higher Education Commission designated the university a VETS Campus in 2015, recognizing it as the first institution in the statewide University of Tennessee System to meet the state's standards for supporting military veterans in higher education. A decade later, that designation still stands.

"As a first-generation college graduate and fellow HPSP recipient, I know firsthand what value this scholarship holds, " says Navy veteran Michael Hocker, MD, executive dean of the university's College of Medicine. "I paid my way through medical school, and without this program, I never would have had the opportunity to also serve my country. It is one of the greatest honors of my life, and I am so grateful that these students have been given that same humbling opportunity."

33 Years and a Full Circle Moment

Military families know the world can get small. Careers intersect, duty stations overlap, and people your parents served with can enter your life. The bond Dr. Tomassetti's father created at Fort Campbell in 1993 surfaced decades later in Memphis.

Douglas Dixon, DMD, PhD, a professor in the College of Dentistry; associate dean for Research; chair of the department of Bioscience Research; and co-director for the Planning and Implementation Core for the Rural Health Center of Excellence, is also an Army veteran. He trained alongside Dr. Tomassetti's father in Kentucky, in the Army's Advanced Education in General Dentistry program. They were young officers then, working side by side in clinic on their first day.

More than three decades later, Dr. Dixon watched his friend's son earn his own dental doctorate and military promotion, then soon head to the Army.

Dr. Dixon says he knew what that moment would mean long before it arrived. "I thought, I'm going to be pretty close to watching him further grow up, like what we experienced together 30 years ago, to watch him develop, and then sit there and celebrate, what a blessing. So grateful to the University of Tennessee Health Sciences for that moment, which will be special to all of us for many years to come."

Dr. Tomassetti's younger brother is now considering dental school too.

Dr. James Tomassetti (left) and Professor Doug Dixon celebrated Dr. Jacob Tomassetti's oath of office at graduation in Memphis.

What the Uniform Does

James Haynes, MD, dean of the College of Medicine - Chattanooga and a retired Air Force colonel who served 24 years, administered the oath at the College of Medicine ceremony. Standing before the graduates, he told the room they would be different when they left that stage.

He knows what that difference feels like.

"There's something larger than your practice and your patients," Dr. Haynes says. "There's a responsibility to your country, your unit and your patients all simultaneously."

His perspective, strengthened through years of coordinating care across squadrons, wings and deployed environments, is what Dr. Haynes sees as the program's most compelling case for expansion.

"The people who serve and are honorably discharged - it doesn't matter whether it's a physician or an enlisted member - they show up for work every day, and that's not necessarily a given," he says. "They have a higher understanding of collaborating and coordinating, and that's the kind of people we need in our system and in our state.

"Some people forget the military is made up of humans and people just like you and me. They're no different, they just have a mission that's higher than themselves, and that breeds an elevated responsibility and a longitudinal responsibility that becomes second nature over time."

Dr. McCulley is heading to Fort Belvoir in Virginia first, an Army installation home to the only tri-service family medicine residency in the military, where Army, Navy and Air Force residents train together. Its shared mission draws her as much as the specialty itself.

She felt that camaraderie at Officer Development School in Rhode Island after her first year of medical school, surrounded by medical students, dental students, nurses and engineers all choosing the same path. "Being around them and hearing their reasons why, seeing their personalities and what the future of the fleet was going to look like was so invigorating," she says. "By promising years of my life to the military, I was so sure in my decision."

Dr. Tomassetti heads to Oklahoma for his officer direct commission course, then his Texas birthplace of Fort Sam Houston for his leadership course, Colorado for residency, then the world.

For HPSP students, it's often a trajectory not entirely planned but impossible to imagine missing.

"You'll get to go places, do things, and see things most will never have the opportunity to," Dr. Haynes says. "It's an honor to care for people who are putting their lives on the line."

Congratulations, Officers

College of Dentistry:

• Ina Kim, DDS, Army
• Anna Magee, DDS, Army
• Jacob Tomassetti, DDS, Army

College of Medicine:

• William Bornt, Jr., MD, Army
• Nathaniel Hauser, MD, Navy
• Kaitlynn Littleford, MD, Air Force
• Adriana Martinez-Lopez, MD, Army
• Emily McCulley, MD, Navy