Dr. Richard Otto

Dr. Richard Otto is the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for the Bureau of Medical Services, a functional equivalent of an Assistant Secretary of State. Prior to becoming the CMO in August 2022, Dr. Otto had served as the Principal Deputy CMO for two years. Dr. Otto is a board-certified internal medicine physician with subspecialty training in critical care medicine. In 2009, Dr. Otto joined the State Department as the Regional Medical Officer (RMO) in Bamako, followed by Tokyo, Afghanistan, and later London. He served as the director of the Department’s medical evacuation program in Washington. He also served as the Regional Medical Manager for the European bureau in Frankfurt. Dr. Otto graduated from the University of Illinois medical school in 1985. Dr. Otto started his medical career as a partner with a multispecialty practice in Oregon concentrating on outpatient care and inpatient consultative medicine. After eight years in Oregon, he moved to South Carolina where he help establish a new hospitalist program. Dr. Otto then moved to Naples Florida where he started a hospitalist and medical practice management company. His hospitalist companies were joined with a national company with whom he worked as their regional medical director.