Deep Impact. Glad to help "chime in".
Jmcalli is right. Corporate mentaility is pervasive in the Navy, nothing has changed much, except much of the pressure is off the junior officers now - they cannot retain them, and they're bleeding out fast. They take it pretty easy on them, cut them a lot of slack.
You guys also are getting paid better now, LONG overdue.
Theres a lot of info here, but I am getting out in a few years, so here goes. Just one mans' opinion. Private practice - forget it.
Been there, done that. We don't do insurance in the military!
The Dental Corps cannot maintain our current numbers for manning, especially mid-grade officers, due to this pervasive contempt for those who actually do the work. This will never change, ever. It is the way things are - they know people will volunteer for things that their protected-class, golden-haired Junior officer children will never have to do. And guess who gets the early promotes not folks like us who actually work on patients.
They take advantage of those who are bright-eyed and foolish enough to step up to the plate, letting others take the burden of the real work, yet allow the specially groomed LTs and LCDR "educators" to sidestep the hard billets. Case in point - look at the ones in charge look at their official photos - they're always light on operational/campaign/deployment ribbons and medals. Thats because they coast on the laurels of others, and take credit for their hard work. Think not? They get promoted because they're connected, and you're not, and never will be.
The earlier trend was to pass over LCDR's and CDR's due to the attempts by Dental Corps BUMED leaders to strip the Dental Corps of any solidarity - meaning, taking away our promotions, stripping us to the bone, turning us into a sorry appendage attached to the Medical Corps, leaving us threadbare, in hopes that the Big Plan to man our billets with civilians would ultimately become a reality, albeit, a failed reality. Yeah, that worked real well, didn't it?
While promotions are actually more promising for new officers, jmcalli is still right. Only the "Killer collateral duty" will get you promoted early or on time. No matter what you do, not matter how much productivity, no matter how much volunteerism, Deployments, forward deployments to war zones, operational commitments, you will not get promoted, and your "educator" peers (even very poor chairside providers) will always get capped ahead of you. Sorry kids, this comes from someone who actually has gone the full Monty,
Commitment to the Navy, persistence and loyalty, "taking a bullet" for the Corps will NEVER get you promoted. Not ever. It's a fat, bloated organization that runs on "good old boy" mentality, and if you're not "in", you never, ever will be. They make these decisions from the moment you sign up, and it follows you throughout your career.
They do not value loyalty, only your ability to organize functions, do a spreadsheet for the coveted "Command Preventive Dentisty Officer" presentation to the XO, organize the annual Dental Corps Ball, run the Infection Control Program, attend the golf luncheons (by invitation only). And youre not invited to golf with the CO, because while they get these perks, you will be working on patients, because readiness is abysmal, you have to work harder. You cannot fast track to O6 unless you drive a desk.
Even having a specialty will not save you if you don't jump the firey hoops in the proper order. Plenty of retired O5 perio/endo/pros guys out there.
My suggestion - volunteer for nothing. NOTHING. Never deploy, be an average chairside provider, learn administrative big time, and hang up your handpiece, Abandon dentistry for the most part, and bite, scratch, and kick for that killer collateral duty, and learn a mean golf swing, work on your PowerPoint delivery, catch the eye of the CO/XO and suck deep..... Oh yeah. It's really like that out there. That's all they really care about.
Thats how they get promoted and then they tell 90% of us that were not working hard enough, press us to deploy overseas, into combat zones, deploy on ships, volunteer for that special assignment that will most certainly get us promoted. Right.
Then they sit their in all their magnificence, marveling at how they manipulated the rest of us to do the dirty work, take credit for all of it, and then pass bones to the rest of us in the form of Promotables and Must Promotes their special kiss of death to make sure you dont promote on time, and then give up in frustration after being passed over too many times.
Senior Dental Officers can have lengthy 30 year careers almost devoid of chairside skills. These Adminodontists then retire doing something else, because they've lost all their chairside skill-sets due to sitting behind a desk for thirty years telling the rest of us how to do our jobs, what to volunteer for, and then have the temerity and audacity to sit in front of you, presenting your Fitrep to you, explaining why you won't ever be an "early promote", because they let their younger, golden-haired children of the Dental Corps sit on their asses. and make the rest of the real dentists do the actual work - while they get all the glory.
Join the Air Force - I agree with AFDDS. They need people, and they dont have ships (no sea duty kids), and dont put you into combat zones for 6-7 months at a time, wont make you change your basic uniforms every three years (which you have to $$$$$pay for all the time), and actually have chairside assistants who, on the average, have at least two
years of college. Bases, Quarters, buildings and equipment will be newer. They dont live, breath and die by the asinine (95% readiness rule).
And they treat you better.
We dont exactly attract the best and the brightest help, but youll be expected to feel their pain, tolerate stupidity, when after six months of assisting you, they still havent figured out that the dental unit needs to be set up before the patients arrive, not after they sit in the chair. And that starting on time is really important with one hour blocks, and that it really does make a difference on streamlining patient care. I could go on and on. Fight for a civilian assistant - they know what they're doing.
Good luck to all of you.
OBTW, Try to get that Top Gun, JAG, NCIS dreamy nonsense/crap out of your heads. Its not the real Navy. But then again, its more than just ships at sea. Right Deep Impact?
