Air Force Life after Med School and Residency

[mdocfuture]

Would like some commentary on this. Could we maybe start with the following questions?:

1. Did you get to choose the location of your residency?

2. After residency, did you get to choose where you wanted to go? Did you stay in the same location as your residency? Were you sent somewhere completely opposite of where you were wanting to go?

3. How long have your deployments been? How long have you been in since you finished your training and how many deployments have you had? Could you take your family or spouse with you?

4. How many times have you had to move and to where?

5. What do you love about military life and wouldn't trade for anything?

Thanks in advance!

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[deuist]

1. Nope

2. No, No, and minimally willing to go there

3. Haven't been on any deployments yet. I have one tasked in the coming months. In my specialty, docs can expect on deploying once every 18-24 months. Other specialties don't deploy as often. Your family will never be allowed to come on a deployment.

4. A bunch and all over the map.

5. The patient population has fewer drug seekers and entitled patients. By far, the best part of being in the military is the patients. I would give the rest of it up.

 

[mdocfuture]

What speciality are you in? How long have you been practicing?

 

[mdocfuture]

And how often have you been moving? Do you have a family?

 

[colbgw02]

Not AF, but...

1. Errr...kinda? There's a match, not unlike the NRMP.

2. Errr...less kinda? Typically there's a "wish list" or "dream list", the latter of which is probably more apropos. It is unusual, but not unheard of, to stay on as staff after training. They are under no obligation to abide by any of your wishes, but they don't typically blow you off either. There are some low cards in the assignment deck, and somebody's going to get dealt them. It very well could be you.

3. Specialty and operational tempo dependent. "Specialists" tend to go for shorter periods than "generalists". Unless the AF is vastly different, then families don't go on deployments (although I seem to recall some AF docs "deploying" to Landstuhl). Deployments are typically to austere environments, like Afghanistan. Are you thinking of overseas assignments?

4. Not sure about AF. As a rule, Army assignments are for 3 years, but that rule is broken so often in the medical corps it's lost nearly all meaning.

5.

A. "Love" is a strong word to throw around military medicine. I enjoy the patient population - the men and women in uniform, either now or those who came before. Their families are generally okay, but less so. I enjoy feeling like my work has meaning.

B. I realize it's just an idiom, but there isn't anything that I've experienced that I wouldn't trade. I don't regret my choice, because it's a formative experience and I might not like "alternate me". Still, if I had a time machine, I'd use it to tell 18-year old me not to sign those ROTC scholarship papers.

 

[deuist]

I am re-posting what I said earlier today to another poster who had similar questions: Start at the top of the military forum and read the first 50 threads. Even if you don't think that it applies to you or you don't understand the acronyms, you still need to read every one of them. A lot of the practicing docs on this board are very unhappy with the way things turned out and you need to hear their stories. Listening to a recruiter (who doesn't work in healthcare, by the way) will only steer you in the wrong direction.

 

[RavenDoc]

I'll echo the previous post. You seriously need to do your homework on this site. Recruiters lie, but they're also trying to sell you something they know nothing about.

I would accept $500k in loans in a heartbeat to get back what the AF took from me. By the grace of God I'm still standing at the end of it all, but you have no idea what kind of devastation can be inflicted on physicians and patients by an organization as inept, backward, and unsafe as the AF medical service.

If you're on the fence about joining, don't join. Just don't.

You can always pm me for information.

 

[mdocfuture]

Unsafe? How so?

 

[deuist]

Unsafe? How so?

> Missing, needed equipment
> Undertrained techs
> Physicians who are clinically inept
> Understaffing through deployment, furlough, hiring freezes, and, "Can't you just see more patients?"
> Outdated policies that are not based on evidence
> Non-physicians making treatment decisions