Deputy Assistant Director (DAD), Medical Affairs

Doctor Cordts is the Deputy Assistant Director, Medical Affairs (DAD-MA). He is responsible for Military Health System (MHS) clinical quality, patient safety, and risk management policies, procedures, and direction. Additional responsibilities include Graduate Medical Education, patient experience, and civilian physician recruiting, as well as advancing the tenets of High Reliability and external transparency.

Prior to this role, Cordts served as the Deputy Assistant Director, Strategy, Plans, and Functional Integration (J-5), and MHS Functional Champion, Department of Defense’s representative for the clinical, business, and operational communities. He was the “voice of the customer” in implementation of MHS GENESIS, the Department’s $4.3B Electronic Health Record.

Cordts retired from the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 2014 after 30 years of service, serving as a physician and leader at every level of Army Medicine. He served as Hospital Commander at Fort Stewart, Georgia and Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Cordts was deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom as a vascular surgeon. He was previously stationed at the Office of The (Army) Surgeon General (OTSG), Falls Church, Virginia; William Beaumont Army Medical Center (DCCS), El Paso, Texas; and Tripler Army Medical Center, Hawaii, where he was Chief, Department of Surgery; Chief, Vascular Surgery Service; and General Surgery Program Director.   

Cordts is Board-certified in General Surgery, Vascular Surgery and Surgical Critical Care. He is a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and holds a medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). He received a Master’s Degree in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College. Cordts is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a Distinguished Fellow for the Society for Vascular Surgery, and Associate Professor of Surgery at USUHS. Dr. Cordts has authored or co-authored more than 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as 2 book chapters.