Change of Command at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital

Colonel Charles Callahan on Tuesday took the reins of the from retiring Col. Susan Annicelli in front of an audience of hundreds. 

“American Medicine is changing dramatically,” Callahan said. “As we enter this inter-war period, military medicine will change as well. We have a choice to make here and across the joint operating area, ‘Will we be the leaders or will we be led?’ I say the former.”

Callahan is the former chief of staff at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, and also commanded the DeWitt Army Community Hospital and Health Care Network from 2008 to 2010. 

Annicelli, a 32-year Army veteran who is retiring, led the transition from Belvoir's aged Dewitt hospital from July 2010, to the new facility last August.

“We turned off clinical operations at DeWitt at 7 a.m., admitted our first patient from the FBCH ED at 8 a.m., performed our first surgery at noon, and delivered the first baby at [5:30 p.m.],” she said at the ceremony. “You redefined team work, innovation, motivation, dedication and resiliency.”

Major General Steve Jones, officiating officer and commander of Joint Task Force National Capital Region Medical, awarded Annicelli the Distinguished Service Medal for her work. “She flawlessly led the transition from a small 40-bed DeWitt Army Community Hospital to a magnificent, new 120-bed facility when leaders doubted it would be completed on time or nearly as well,” Jones said. “Her staff accomplished this under the most difficult of circumstances, which included a couple of blizzards, a hurricane and an earthquake.”