Thursday, May 29, 2025
Dr. Mills, medical director for Correctional Medicine at UNTHSC’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine
John Mills, DO, MPH, of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, is one of the most revered experts in correctional medicine — and he’s now being inducted as a fellow into the American College of Correctional Physicians.
Dr. Mills, UNTHSC’s medical director for Correctional Medicine, will be honored at the national conference in September in Providence, Rhode Island.
“I am very honored to be recognized as a fellow in the ACCP, especially as a DO,” Mills said.
Mills founded UNTHSC’s correctional medicine program, which provides essential medical care for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He also sits on the National Commission on Correctional Health Care Policy and Research Committee.
To become a fellow of the ACCP, a physician must demonstrate active involvement in correctional medicine, hold an active unrestricted medical license and possess active board certification in an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited specialty applicable to correctional health care.
In addition, Mills has been selected to serve on the new ACGME Milestones Committee for Correctional Medicine.
Over the past year, the ACGME created a new fellowship program and standards to help train physicians entering the field of correctional medicine.
“Our job as I see it is to make sure the fellows are being trained to those standards because dealing with prisoners is so unique,” Mills said. “In correctional medicine, you will be taking care of people with all kinds of histories, from drug abuse to mental illness, and you really have to know what you are doing.”
“I’ve always considered correctional medicine as a subspecialty of public health because you are caring for the underserved of the underserved,” he said. “Most of these people have never seen a doctor in their lives. This is why I have always been involved in fellowship training.”
The committee will meet multiple times throughout the year to check the progress of the fellows. The program will give physicians the opportunity to be better prepared for the myriad of situations they will encounter in prisons.
“I’ve talked to many correctional physicians over the years who said they weren’t sure they need a fellowship,” Mills said. “So I asked them, ‘In the first two or three years they were in prison, did they make any mistakes?’ Of course, they all say yes. So, it’s obvious that we need to train people so they won’t make those mistakes either.”
Mills joined UNTHSC in 1989 after working as a U.S. Army master flight surgeon. He believed the university offered the best preventive medicine program in the country. His passion for correctional medicine spans decades, but the core conviction of why he does it has never changed.
“I go back to one of my old sayings: How should we take care of prisoners?” said Mills. “My answer is always the same — all you have to do is think of this prisoner as your brother, father, sister or mother. Would you want them to get the standard community health care that everyone else receives? We aren’t asking for Mayo Clinic-level care, but the care they should be getting is the same that others get in our community hospitals.”
Mills has been an ardent supporter of UNTHSC in his nearly four decades of service
to the school. He also has established five endowed scholarships — each named the
Jeremiah G. Mills Rural Medicine Scholarship in honor of his late son — to support
medical students and a physician assistant student interested in practicing rural
medicine.
From HSC Newsroom - Our People by Steven Bartolotta