STRIPES AND STETHOSCOPES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF NURSE CORPS PROMOTION RATES ACROSS ARMY, NAVY, AND AIR FORCE

This thesis provides the first systematic cross-service comparison of promotion outcomes among U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force Nurse Corps officers. Although the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) establishes a common statutory framework for advancement, each service retains discretion over promotion timing and vacancy management, potentially producing divergent career trajectories for similarly qualified nurses. Using longitudinal administrative data from the Defense Medical Human Resources System Intranet (DMHRSi) spanning fiscal years 2016–2024, I analyze promotion rates, time-in-grade, and promotion likelihood at the O-3 to O-4, O-4 to O-5, and O-5 to O-6 gates using cohort-based descriptive analysis, logistic regression, Kaplan–Meier survival estimation, and Cox proportional hazards models. I found that promotion timing differs across services at each gate: the Air Force leads at O-3 to O-4, while the Navy leads at both O-4 to O-5 and O-5 to O-6. Service differences narrow at senior ranks. Medical-Surgical nurses have the lowest promotion rates across all services, yet subspecialty differences alone do not explain service-wide disparities, suggesting institutional policy drives promotion timing more than workforce composition. Findings inform workforce planning and equity discussions in joint medical environments.

Department dc:contributor.department

Department of Acquisition, Finance and Manpower (DAFM)

Grantor dc:publisher

Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Adams, Stephanie A.

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Shen, Yu-Chu
• Cunha, Jesse

Statement dc:rights

• This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10945/74962

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:calhoun.nps.edu:10945/74962