Hi thanks for emailing me-
I'm one of the [] pathology residents at [insert large MTF recently highlighted in the news]. I'll try to answer your questions as best as possible:
What medical school did you to to? Did you do HPSP?
I went to [insert private midwest med school]. I was HPSP.
What is it about your specialty that made you fall in love with it?
I went to medical school thinking that I wanted to do pathology. I had worked with a pathologist during undergrad and I shadowed him a few times. During med school I mostly considered pathology and radiology for specialities. I knew that clinical medicine was not for me.
I did like clinical medicine. There was just a lot to it that I did not like. I like being in the hospital on the wards and the ICU, but I hated clinic. I liked coming up with diagnoses and thinking about the pathophysiology of diseases. I just didn't like the actual treating of patients once we had worked all that out. So it seemed like the more diagnostic specialities of pathology and radiology would be a good fit. Pathology won out because there is a lot more variety to it than radiology. Most of my exposure to radiology was just sitting in the reading room and looking at films. Seemed kind of boring after a month. That's just me though-
Pathology is a very cerebral/problem-solving specialty. I like that being handed a tray of slides in the morning and sitting down and deciding what the answer to all of them are. The great thing is that we get to see all of the really great cases that come through your hospital. You get to see the 'zebra's far more often than you would in any general practice field.
At what point during your medical education did you decide pathology was the way to go?
Basically somewhere in third year after I knew that I did not want to do clinical medicine. My third year experience confirmed that pathology would be a good choice for me (especially after doing a few pathology rotations).
How happy are you with the current climate of military medicine?
As a pathology resident I'm pretty happy with it. Truthfully, I don't do much that would be classified as 'military.' The vast majority of my contact with your regular (non-medical corps) is all of the mandatory training hassles that we are all required to do in the military (eg. Sexual harassment, trafficking in illegal persons, drunk driving education). But in terms of pathology in the Army, I am pretty unhappy with the AFIP closing situation. It's a real travesty. The atmosphere in our department is pretty good. We are insulated from a lot of the operational stuff with OIF/OEF. Out of ~110 pathologists in the army, only one deploys (6 months) to Iraq at a given time. No one is in Afghanistan. The Iraq gig for a pathologist is mostly baby-sitting the lab, and a lot of admin BS. Basically it's really boring. Fortunately, there seems to be a lot of younger pathologists who want to put an OIF deployment in their promotion package that there are a lot of volunteers. So unless you are really unlucky you don't seem to go if you don't want. We'll see if that holds up in the future.
One of the worst things about pathology in the Army is your support staff. In pathology you can live or die by your support staff (histotechs, immunostainers, admin people, etc). And it basically takes an act of Congress to get one of these GS workers fired. So they hang around and totally screw up your department and really slow us down. That is one of the most frustrating things. We can sometimes have cases that take up to a week to get signed out that you would sign out in 2-3 days in the civilian world.
If you're unhappy with it, do you think things will change for the better soon?
It's difficult to say. Military medicine has taken a big hit since ~'95 or so, and it doesn't seem to be getting better. My big concern is that a good proportion of the larger cancer cases and other cases of major interest to pathology are being farmed through Tricare to civilian hospitals due to the OIF/OEF situation. So we'll see how that goes in the future.
Do you think you make enough money in the Army to be comfortable?
As a resident it is very nice. But there is a huge discrepancy between what pathologists make in the civilian world and what they make in the Army. But you will make enough to be comfortable, and own a house just about everywhere you could be stationed.
What do you like most about the Army?
As I said above, I don't really have too much contact with the regular run-of-the-mill Army as a resident. I really like my residency and my fellow residents. So as far as that goes, it's been a great experience. Most army pathologists seem to be happy with practicing in the Army. We'll see how much I like it when I'm done with residency.
I already know that I'm going to put in my 4 years of payback, and then get out. Mostly because I'm married with kids and my wife and I would like to move back to the midwest near all of our family.
Right now, my top choice for school is USUHS in Bethesda.
I would just caution you to read a lot and try to talk to as many people as possible. There are some well-balanced opinions on the SDN forums, and also some people who have burned by the military in the past. Definetly don't do it for the money... thousands of medical students finance (and eventually pay back) their educations with loans every year. Although if you do decide to do pathology, definetly do the Army (instead of AF/Navy). There are more residency spots, no internship/GMO track to get stuck in, and more places to train/work that are nice for pathologists later on. I can't comment much on USUHS (other than I like their pathology staff). Just read and research. Good luck
I hope I answered these well enough email me again if you have any more questions.
[drbloodmoney]
