Where do infectious disease physicians get stationed?

[kellen914]

Hey all! I was just curious,


Does specializing narrow the locations you would end up being stationed post fellowship? Or do most army hospitals still offer most specialties at each facility. Specifically, I'm interested in ID. Is there any information about where ID physicians end up being stationed? I couldn't find a similar thread on here.

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[Gastrapathy]

Navy ID docs have the best billets around. I personally knew people in Geneva, Peru, and at the major MTFs. Hardly anyone farmed out somewhere bad. Can't speak for the Army.

 

[WernickeDO]

As with most things in the military, it's really the luck of the draw. You can range from being stationed at a teaching hospital to becoming a brigade surgeon and not practicing medicine at all.

 

[Rector]

Navy ID attending here. In general, about half of our billets are clinical and half are research; most of us move back and forth between the two, although some stay all on one side or all on the other after fellowship. Our clinical sites are all at the larger facilities (San Diego, Bethesda, Portsmouth) - there are occasional guys who will voluntarily take a general IM billet to go somewhere they find interesting (e.g., Guam, which is a pretty high acuity center), but in general we stay at the big three. The research/public health jobs are either in the DC area (USUHS, NMRC, AFHSC/GEIS) or overseas in Peru, Egypt, Cambodia, Singapore, and Ghana. I was stationed in Peru for three years after fellowship before returning to the hospital, for example. I can't speak for the Army, but the setup is pretty similar. Their overseas labs are in Thailand and Kenya; I've spent a little time at the Thailand lab. A poster above mentioned the Geneva billet; this is the military liaison to the WHO. A few of my friends have had this job in the past.

So while there is a definite needs-of-the-Navy thing going on with your specific assignments, there are few genuinely bad locations.

 

[68PGunner]

As with most things in the military, it's really the luck of the draw. You can range from being stationed at a teaching hospital to becoming a brigade surgeon and not practicing medicine at all.

OP, please remember this notice. This is the Army way of saying that you're not exempt from the crappiest assignment available despite your specialty.