THE FULCRUM of a health professional career, whether as a physician, dentist, veterinarian, nurse, corpsman (a designation for both men and women), medical technician, pharmacologist, or health care administrator, can be found in a group of modernistic buildings in Fort Sam Houston, a few miles outside San Antonio, Tex.
Known as the Academy of Health Sciences, a major element of the US Army Health Services Command, it is the largest health care training school in the world. Every year, some 36 000 students attend 160 courses and another 28 000 are enrolled in 38 different correspondence courses.
"This is the home of Army medicine; every soldier 'medic,' on full-time active duty or in the Reserve or Army National Guard, at some point in his or her career will pass through here and take a course of instruction of one type or another," says LTC Robert Barrett, the National Guard adviser