Thank you for your genius opinion! Now that you are in the military I'm certain your probably running a hospital now without administrative skills. As you have ascertained the military doesn't give you the option of yes or no in regards to what "they" want. I realize your post is way past old but felt compelled to add a bit of clarity being a former IDMT. A bit of history regarding my experience may help. My first assignment was Wilford Hall in Labor and Delivery in 1985 straight out of tech school. Yup six weeks and knew nothing about it and one of the few males assigned to it at that time.
Had four years of high risk OB experience. Was a scrub tech on an emergency C-section and the 4th year resident cut the woman's bowel that required a bowel resection and hysterectomy after she developed coagulopathy and the senior attending had to come in and repair it. She lost her residency. My experience after a 6 hour surgery was draining because I had NEVER done any surgery assistance coming close to that. Had limited training on instruments albeit 2 weeks in OR having nothing to do with OB. Watched medical student break bag with thick meconium on baby and he had no clue that heart rate was non-existant on Doppler. I was a tech and took it upon myself to yell down the hall to prepare for C-section because he didn't try to put electrode on head. No nurse present. Baby died. 2 years primary care experience after that, 1 year sterile supply, 3 years ER then IDMT school. Choice? No. You either passed the course or you got in trouble. IDMT school was intense and it was 8-5 mon-fri for 4 months. My experience was already suturing, casting, IM injections, medication administration, breathing treatments. First deployment as IDMT? Somalia. Daunting? Well doctor, next time you feel the need to chastise anybody then look no further than your employer, not the guy grabbing the chart. Experience goes ALOT farther than you think and trust me that my training was no where close to what it needed to be to do the job expected of me. Unless your willing to deploy to ****holes and do the job then by all means deploy. All of us do the best we can with what we have and the military decided we as enlisted had to fit that bill. Hell no it wasn't right and still isn't. Now I want that pharmacist to go out in the field with his education and see patients, examine, diagnose, differential diagnosis, and treat with limited equipment or drugs. I am comfortable with my twenty year career as an uneducated provider of patient care because I had too and I harmed no one. In fact very proud of my accomplishments. I assisted with a baby delivery in Somalia on a COT, diagnosed appendicitis on patient after two visits with a DOCTOR, and assisted with his surgery to remove it. Assisted with anencephalics, hydrocephalus, quadruplets, diabetic emergencies, dental emergencies, put temporary fillings, checked water samples, food inspections, Gram stains, urine tests, performed hematocrits,, assisted with pap smears, minor surgeries, removed toenails, packed wounds, trained in medications, head to toe exams, EMT, ACLS, CPR instructed, Ambulance Instructor, IVs, chest tubes. Assisted with sigmoidoscopies, ent, urology and minor surgeries, orthopedic and internal medicine. Anything else you would like to know about IDMTs? What the hell? I've seen my share of ****ty doctors regardless of education. We do/did the best we could and in most cases had no choice.
