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Announcement #881234600

Program Specialist

Veterans Health Administration · Columbia, South Carolina
Federal transitionInternal

What you'd do

The Program Specialist serves within the Education Service Line at the Dorn VA Medical Center and supports a wide range of training, academic affiliation, and administrative functions essential to the Veterans Health Administration's education mission. The role focuses on coordinating Associated Health Trainee programs-such as nursing, pharmacy, optometry, and allied health-and managing medical student activities.

Major duties

Major Duties: Coordinates onboarding and orientation for medical students and associated health trainees, ensuring completion of mandatory training and accurate entry of trainee data into local and national systems. Performs analytical and evaluative work to assess program operations, prepare reports, and recommend process improvements to the Associate Chief of Staff for Education. Supports residency program administration, including managing disbursement agreements, affiliation agreements, Subcouncil documentation, and statistical reporting for the Office of Academic Affiliations. Administers VA national scholarship programs (EISP, NNEI, VANEEP) and provides guidance to employees on eligibility, application, academic progress, and service-obligation compliance. Interprets federal regulations, VA directives, VISN policies, and Medical Center procedures and advises service line staff on policy updates or procedural changes. Work Schedule: 0800-1630 Mon-Fr Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Program Specialist/PD071610 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): ???????Not Authorized

What you need to qualify

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 08/28/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-07 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Onboarding health professions trainees & academic or training programs such as residency or trainee programs. OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education beyond ??????: Master's degree Two (2) full years of progressively higher-level graduate education, Equivalent graduate education combination For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

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