ishii123 said:
I see my thread has gone out of hand.
My apologies for derailing your venting session.
ishii123 said:
So I feel the need to explain a little more of the situation. I have 6 more months of being a flight surgeon. After my 6 months, I will start a very competitive military residency in July 2006. I will not state which residency for anonymity's sake, but it is in the caliber of Rads, Derm, Ophthal, etc (definitely a specialty that fellow doctors are envious of because it is fun, pays well, and still has enough freetime to spend with family and friends). During my final 6 months, I will play it safe and not do anything that jeopardizes my residency slot. My CO still writes my final FIT REP before residency. An adverse FIT REP can take away my residency slot and there are many salivating "alternates" on the waiting list. Therefore, I'll be following stupid and unreasonable orders (within reason) my final 6 months as a flight surgeon.
Again, no one was suggesting that you disobey orders. Just that it's part of our jobs to persuade our superiors to rescind (or not give in the first place) stupid or unreasonable orders, and that it's almost always possible to do so in a polite, respectful manner, without risking an adverse fitrep.
Every once in a while I run into an absolutely miserable GMO, who doesn't like working for the line because they're medically clueless meddlers who get in the way. One that leaps to mind immediately arrived with such contempt for Marines ("they were losers in high school, and they're losers now") that I was totally unsurprised to hear the weekly litany of complaints about his stupid command and his dumb patients and the crazy Navy that makes doctors take a break from training to go "babysit high school dropouts." Most of the others just had passive personalities and would vent complaints eerily similar to yours.
Line officers generally don't know what is or isn't possible, or what is or isn't appropriate, regarding treatment or specialty consults. They want us to tell them what to do with sick/injured/crazy patients, and they'll do what we tell them if we explain our recommendations. I have never, not once, run into that hypothetical situation where my command has discarded my recommendations because the immediate needs of the mission outweighed the health of a Marine. Without exception, the two COs, two XOs, and dozen or so company commanders I've worked with the last couple years have been intelligent, reasonable people who've deferred to my judgment on all things medical. Maybe I've just been lucky to not have any malignant superiors ... but I don't think mine were atypical.
ishii123 said:
This thread was meant just to be a venting situation. If you aren't in my shoes, then you do
not understand, especially if you're a med student who has never been a GMO, deployed multiple times, and worked with line officers.
Therefore, do not judge me unless you are in my shoes. Being an operational flight surgeon (aka "glorified GMO") and working with line officers is a totally different world than working within the hospital and clinic heirarachy. Line officers generally have a different logic, have pre-conceived notions in what a doctor is supposed to do, but in reality have little understanding in what a doctor can and cannot do. This can be very frustrating at times. However you learn to deal with it in order to achieve the military mission.
Overall, I have done a great job as a flight surgeon and have always received "early promotes" and over 4.0 on my FIT REPS. So I would say I do my job well. Therefore, who are you to say I did a bad job of being a flight surgeon? One thing you learn in life is this: choose your battles wisely (especially if it can jeopardize your residency slot).
If you are one day in my shoes and have been selected for the residency of your dreams, would you jeopardize it by not following a stupid order? If "yes", then that's your prerogative. But personally, I'm not jeopardizing this for myself and my family. I'm playing it safe because the rest of my life and my family's life is set once I reach residency.
Well, I've been a GMO for the last 2.5 years, am midway through my 2nd deployment with the Marines, and was just selected for the residency of my dreams too. (Congratulations to both of us.
) Truthfully, a GMO getting an EP isn't all that big a deal, since we're usually either the only, or one of two, people in our summary group.
And once again I'll admit that there may be other factors in play in your situation, such as a truly awful CO who always treats his medical officers like crap ... though I do feel at least minimally qualified to comment on the information you did provide.
And all I can say is that if either of the Colonels I've worked for had told me that he wanted that psych patient seen right-this-very-minute, I would have told him that he missed her appointment, that psych didn't have anyone available to see her, and that it would be unwise to 'cry wolf' and pretend the patient was an emergency just to get her seen by the on-call shrink. And that would have been the end of it. At worst, I would have spent a few minutes calling the mental health clinic to ask the on-call guy for a favor out of the goodness of his heart, but I wouldn't have been emotionally invested in the outcome. And regardless of that outcome, I wouldn't have made the conceptual leap to conclude that the day's petty annoyances were an indictment of GMO life in general.
I didn't post in this thread just to criticize you - not really, anyway
- my basic intent was that future GMOs who read this forum would have another perspective. I think your claim that GMO life universally sucks, even for "glorified GMOs" like flight surgeons (not sure where that's coming from?), is inaccurate. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of former GMOs I met as a medical student and intern had basically positive things to say about their GMO tours, and many looked back on it as a fantastic experience that they'll probably never match.
The biggest factor adversely affecting current GMO happiness, as far as I can tell, is the deployments and op tempo - not command climate. I personally have loved my GMO tour, and have enjoyed the respect, confidence, and support of the line the entire time. Although I wouldn't want to make a career out of it, and I'm very much looking forward to getting back to a hospital next year ... spending time with the infantry has been a great experience and I'm glad I had the opportunity.
Anyway, congrats on your residency selection, and sorry to hear your GMO experience wasn't more positive.
