Military Doctor with Asthma

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Wreckem22

New Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2012
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Hello All! I am new here and having trouble finding an answer to this. I would like to serve in the US military as a physician after medical school. My problem is I have exercise induced asthma. Is this an absolute no go even if I want to join as a doctor? I am interested in either the Navy or Air Force medical corps.Thanks for any help!

Members don't see this ad.
 
It depends. How bad is it? I also have exercise-induced asthma. It's not really a problem - I can PT fine, but when I was a high school/college athlete, it made a difference in my performance (it was more a good-->great pulmonary function, not keeping me from dying). When I wanted to join, I had to go off of all the meds for a while (I think they want to see a year w/o asthma attack), and do a pulmonary function test. I barely squeaked in - my ROTC unit had to really fight.

With HPSP slots being more competitive now, they may be less inclined to allow/pursue waivers. My advice on waivers is if you really want one, try for it, fight like hell. If you don't try, you'll never know.
 
No go for Navy. We have more than enough docs on active duty, so we don't need to do waivers.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Don't let medical disqualifications hold you up, nor let a recruiter tell you that it will-they are just being lazy 99% of the time. Myself and another buddy are both leaving the Army to go to med school with the idea of coming back to the Army. We are both currently commanders in Infantry units, where medical conditions actually affect your performance. We will both have to get medical waivers for HPSP, even though we both served in Afghanistan just fine and as physicians will not have to do anything close to as physically demanding as our current positions. Drive on.
 
Especially exercise induced asthma. I am a sub 3 hour marathoner and I have exercise induced asthma.
 
AF: waivers possible, but they will take a long hard look given the deployment restrictions, even as a doc and even if you can PT fine. Probably a a no go for being a flight doc also. Still worth a shot, if you want in that bad.
 
NavyFP...Do you know if the Navy is taking direct accessions at the moment or possibly in 6-9 months if you had a crystal ball?
 
Hello All! I am new here and having trouble finding an answer to this. I would like to serve in the US military as a physician after medical school. My problem is I have exercise induced asthma. Is this an absolute no go even if I want to join as a doctor? I am interested in either the Navy or Air Force medical corps.Thanks for any help!

From my experience, asthma is a no go for Navy and Air Force. It was easy to get a waiver with the Army. Once you're in -- all that they care about is if you can pass the APFT and make height/weight.

Army has better residencies anyway.
 
Army has better residencies anyway.

Compared to inservice Air Force...probably. Except the Army has some crappy residencies and I'd say they, overall, aren't as good as Navy residencies. And, gorsh, you can get all trained up in an Army residency, maybe even do a good civilian fellowship, and come back to do two years as a brigade surgeon watching your skills rot on the vine. If you're lucky you'll just deploy for 6-12 months as GMO watching your skills rot. If you're really lucky, you might get to do both.
 
NavyFP...Do you know if the Navy is taking direct accessions at the moment or possibly in 6-9 months if you had a crystal ball?

Anesthesia? The Navy is currently 130% manned in gas passers. I doubt they are looking for more.

That said, if in July they have a bunch of direct accession goals that they can't fill..........they might want to check any box.
 
Why so overmanned?

My experience in Afghanistan-Anyone who was prone to any type of reactive airway disease worsened while there. Lots of reasons-dust, constant burning of all sorts of trash (some quite toxic), fungus, weeds, rodent poop...anything that you can imagine in austere environment. Something to think about in a person with asthma who could potentially deploy.
 
Guess the grass is not so green on the outside with all of the CRNAs....

The job market has tightened up on the outside the last few years, and I'm sure it has improved retention, but CRNAs dont factor in. We're overmanned (on paper) because we had a bumper crop of deferred residency grads 3 years ago. Odds are those HPSP deferrals won't stay for a career, and coupled with reduced inservice class sizes, my semi-informed hip-shot prediction is that we won't be overmanned for long.

I think the softer civilian job market has more to do with
- old guys whose investments got hit in 2008 delaying retirement
- groups choosing not to expand until the ACA dust settles
not so much CRNAs.

Both of those issues are blips.

The only grass-ain't-greener factor that helped sway me to stay in was the realization that the patient population on the inside is far more rewarding to serve. I once took 2 weeks of leave to moonlight full time and made $26,000 or so, but when 1 in 3 is a meth head, lifer from the prison up the road, non-English speaking self/no-payer, or 350 pound Person of Walmart ... I began to appreciate the patients at the Navy joint even more.
 
The job market has tightened up on the outside the last few years, and I'm sure it has improved retention, but CRNAs dont factor in. We're overmanned (on paper) because we had a bumper crop of deferred residency grads 3 years ago. Odds are those HPSP deferrals won't stay for a career, and coupled with reduced inservice class sizes, my semi-informed hip-shot prediction is that we won't be overmanned for long.

True, I had not looked as closely at the gain side, but they are not projecting significant losses in the near future (probably in error). Gains vs losses will probably plateau in 4 years and manning should be back to 100% =/- 5%. Dating back to the late 80s, anesthesia has been overmanned most of the time with a nader in 04 and 05 of 86%. That prompted the huge NADDS numbers.
 
I was honestly thinking about coming back in. Mainly for the reasons that pgg described. I miss the Navy and got out because of family reasons at the time which have resolved. Just wondered with the overmanning, what my chances could be. Thanks for the help.
 
so as a hypothetical, what sort of newly developed/discovered medical problems would one be inclined to inform the military about if you were on HPSP?
 
so as a hypothetical, what sort of newly developed/discovered medical problems would one be inclined to inform the military about if you were on HPSP?

Anything that might impact your performance on active duty. I really don't recommend hiding things.
 
so as a hypothetical, what sort of newly developed/discovered medical problems would one be inclined to inform the military about if you were on HPSP?

Tell them everything. You may or may not be aware of the full spectrum of disqualifying conditions. Just because you think something is trivial doesn't mean the military agrees.


If you develop a disqualifying condition mid-HPSP and inform the program, you may be dropped but the military is not going to demand to be refunded monies already paid on your behalf. The exception might be if you acquired that condition while committing some crime; eg, you snap your spine while DUI'ing your car through a kindergarten.

Another bad way to go would be to conceal some condition, finish up the scholarship living high on the HPSP hog, then tell them you developed disqualifying condition XYZ three years ago. Then, the military will likely tell you to take a hike and, oh by the way, here's a bill + interest for everything the military paid for you or to you. Due in 120 convenient equal non-dischargable-in-bankruptcy installments.
 
Tell them everything. You may or may not be aware of the full spectrum of disqualifying conditions. Just because you think something is trivial doesn't mean the military agrees.


If you develop a disqualifying condition mid-HPSP and inform the program, you may be dropped but the military is not going to demand to be refunded monies already paid on your behalf. The exception might be if you acquired that condition while committing some crime; eg, you snap your spine while DUI'ing your car through a kindergarten.

Another bad way to go would be to conceal some condition, finish up the scholarship living high on the HPSP hog, then tell them you developed disqualifying condition XYZ three years ago. Then, the military will likely tell you to take a hike and, oh by the way, here's a bill + interest for everything the military paid for you or to you. Due in 120 convenient equal non-dischargable-in-bankruptcy installments.

dang...well, i'll give them a call...i was kind of hoping for other news...do you know who I should report too?
 
dang...well, i'll give them a call...i was kind of hoping for other news...do you know who I should report too?

But on the other hand, everyone has exercise induced asthma
 
Top