Health and Readiness Committee Hosts Dr. Jeremy Cannon

US Navy Aid Station at Utah Beach, Normandy Invasion

The ACNSL Health and Readiness Committee was briefed by Dr. Jeremy Cannon on the Walker Dip. The Walker Dip refers to the dip in military medical capabilities in times of peace. Dr. Cannon argued that the US is drastically underprepared for large scale combat operations, and that the US needs to aim for zero preventable deaths in times of conflict.

Jeremy W. Cannon, MD, SM, FACS is Professor of Surgery and Assistant Dean for Veterans Affairs for Penn Medicine. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Harvard Medical School, and MIT, he served on active duty from 2006–2015 with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Now retired from the Air Force Reserve, he continues to practice trauma, surgical critical care and emergency surgery at Penn. He was a 2024–25 Veteran Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and he recently edited Edward D. Churchill’s Surgeon to Soldiers (2024 Edition).

His key accomplishments and professional milestones include receiving the Paul W. Myers Award for Outstanding Contributions to Air Force Medicine (2011), serving as founding director of the Department of Defense Adult Extracorporeal Life Support/Lung Rescue Program (2011–15), serving as trauma program medical director, Brooke Army Medical Center Level 1 Trauma Center (the only Level 1 trauma center in the Department of Defense, 2012–15), and serving as trauma program medical director, Penn Medicine/Penn Presbyterian Medical Center Level 1 Trauma Center (2018–23). He currently codirects the Penn Acute Research Collaboration and leads the Penn Medicine–US Navy Trauma Training Partnership as surgeon champion.