Interview with Dr. Orien Tulp: Managing Stress and Sacrifices While Balancing a Career and Military Service

Dr. Orien Tulp is a distinguished professor, author, medical researcher, founder, and president of the University of Science, Arts, and Technology. He is a career military veteran and dedicated volunteer who has served on hundreds of medical civic action mission teams in the USA and abroad. 

Dr. Orien Tulp earned a BS, MS, and Ph.D. from the University of Vermont, followed by NIH-sponsored post-graduate studies specializing in Nutrition, Endocrinology, and Metabolism at the Clinical Research Center of the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He is also a graduate of the Vermont Military Academy. He has served in leadership and academic roles throughout his career, including a professorship at Drexel University in Philadelphia and at the University of Science, Arts, and Technology in Montserrat for almost four decades. 

Dr. Tulp has lectured on a wide variety of topics, including aspects of medical nutrition, medical and biomedical research, endocrinology, and metabolism, with an emphasis on nutritional medicine, and has mentored dozens of graduate students for the Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees. He has conducted extensive research on obesity, metabolism, and diabetes and has written hundreds of scientific papers, abstracts, and book chapters, including one of the first contributors to the new journal Academia Biologica, launched in 2023, and serves on the editorial boards of several professional journals. 

In addition to a successful academic career, Dr. Orien Tulp has a long-term military career. Enlisting at age 17, Dr. Tulp recently finished 44 years of active, reserve, and National Guard duty, retiring in the grade of Colonel. He was awarded the US Legion of Merit Medal for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements, in addition to numerous others, including the US Army Meritorious Service Medal, the award of Order of Military Medical Merit (by Surgeon General, USA), The US Army Commendation medal w/7 Oak Leaf Clusters, the Garde du Nationale Trophy, (by National Guard Association of the USA), and a certificate of appreciation for his medical support of the International competition by the Conseil de Sport Militaire, of the International Military Sports Council in addition to accolades for his support of the International Special Winter Olympics and many other awards and decorations for his military service. 

Dr. Tulp is a passionate volunteer and has participated in hundreds of humanitarian and medical civic action missions in the USA and abroad. He has also received a Presidential Volunteer Service Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the White House, signed by President Clinton, and the Citizenship Medal, Awarded by Sons of the American Revolution. 

Dr. Tulp enjoys football and has been an avid skier for many years. In his free time, he enjoys traveling and spending time with his wife, Carla.

Have you had to make any sacrifices in your career or military service in order to maintain balance?

Life is full of sacrifices. You have to make a few concessions here and there. You have to make sacrifices because there are things that you might have wanted to do that the other official fields will interfere with.

That's a big time commitment for both. You should determine what your primary commitment is and make sure you attend to that with a conscientious effort. You make sacrifices. Sometimes there are scientific conferences you really want to attend. But somehow, they're scheduled for your final exam period. You can't be away during that. 

I really wanted to go to a conference that I was invited to speak at; it was in Israel about diabetes, but I had other commitments. I had to send my graduate assistant to represent me. He enjoyed it, for sure. But I didn't get to go because I had another academic priority. So there are sacrifices. 

How do you handle the stress and challenges that come with balancing a military career and a civilian career?

Well, what's important is managing stress. Stress can be a killer if you let it get away. It's really not a good thing. But one of the things that you learn in the military that they don't teach you in academia is stress management. Because if you can't deal with stress, how are you going to act in the worst-case scenario? 

Remember, when you go to a military academy, you're training the next generation of warfighters. If they're going to go out there and lead their commands into battle, and they come back, that's stressful. You have to learn how to manage that stress and remain diplomatic and effective as their leader. 

That comes back to help a lot in academia to put things in their proper perspective. Okay, you have an exam coming up. You better be there to have the students lined up to take that exam. But it's not anything that should raise your heart rate. 

Learning to deal with stress becomes part of the military environment that is often neglected in academia, to deal with things one day at a time, one step at a time.

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