For ɳ University dental hygiene alumna Jessica Scruggs DHS ’09, wellness starts and ends with community.
Her commitment to community is what took her from a career in dental hygiene to a focus on addressing substance abuse and mental health. It’s what led her to a career with the (USPHS) and two stints in the .
That commitment led former Surgeon General Dr. Vitek Murthy to present Scruggs with the Surgeon General’s Exemplary Service Medal in January 2025, honoring her dedication to their shared belief that community is the common thread in combatting many public health issues.
“When things work well in recovery programs, in combatting loneliness, it was because of community,” she said. “The reason he gave me the award was because I followed through on those topics and made sure that they got the representation and conversation they needed in our nation.”
Scruggs was part of the second graduating class in ɳ’s dental hygiene program, a bachelor’s degree program that places a heavy emphasis on public health and community service.
A clinical rotation at ɳ introduced Scruggs to careers in the USPHS. A few years later, when she was looking for a job in California following her husband’s orders to a new Coast Guard post, she joined the service in a position providing dental care and overseeing all medical care of more than 1,300 inmates with the Department of Justice.
It was during that time that she caught the attention of Murthy, who ultimately invited her to join his staff in Washington, D.C. She earned her commission as a USPHS officer and became an advisor to Murthy.
After Murthy’s initial tenure as surgeon general ended in 2017, Scruggs went to work as chief of staff for his nonprofit Emotional Well-Being Lab. When he was appointed to a second term in 2021, Scruggs was eager to return to government service, especially coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The work wasn’t done. I saw our nation dissolving into more discord,” Scruggs said. “The disruption of our communities and our relationships was just amplifying, and that is why I stayed on that path with him.”
Scruggs left the Surgeon General’s Office in 2022, ending her career as a commissioned officer, and is now chief of staff for , which provides virtual mental health services with a specialized focus on early childhood interventions and whole family care. Their approach and values matched those of programs found to be most effective in the , which Scruggs was intimately involved with.
“The programs that really impacted the trajectory of human life with addiction, with high school graduation rates, with mental health, were early childhood interventions on a family level,” Scruggs said. “So, to me, it all circled back. The recidivism, working in the prison system, teenage pregnancy, mental health, the connection of families. How can I do that? Little Otter checked all of the boxes.”
Though Scruggs has moved away from dental hygiene, she says that the foundation she learned at ɳ has carried throughout her career. The program, she said, emphasized science and compassionate patient care, community, and responding to community needs.
“It’s a blend,” she said. “You can write a thesis or have the cure for cancer, but unless you understand how it impacts the community, it’s useless. It’s not this magical operations formula in healthcare administration. It’s taking science and listening and blending it to where people are on the ground. I think that ɳ helped give me those building blocks.”
Scruggs and her husband, Joshua, now work and live on Vashon Island, Washington, a landmass in the middle of southern Puget Sound accessible only by ferry. They live on an island with no bridges by choice, providing her a sense of community and purpose she never knew in California or inside the D.C. Beltway.
“The greatest impact I’ll ever have in the world is not the work in the prison or the work with the Surgeon General,” she said. “It’s the work I do every single day when my elderly neighbor needs their garbage picked up or when someone else has an issue I can help with. Ground zero for me is Vashon Island and that is the work I am most proud of.”