Deferment for residency

[bb622]

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How difficult is it to get a full deferment for a residency like ER? I would think that the Navy would want a lot of ER docs? Thanks

 

[Navy Dive Doc]

You are correct that the Navy wants many ER docs, the problem is that they already have many ER docs. They rarely give out full deferments or FTOS spots. The Navy is required to only train to required manning strength, and ER is something like 102% manned. This sounds like there are plenty of Docs, then, right? Well, once someone is ER trained, they always occupy one of those manning slots, even if they are doing something totally unrelated to emergency medicine. Many ER docs do other things, such as senior medical officers on ships, senior DMO/FS tours, admin jobs, etc. Thus, the ERs themselves are chronically undermanned, especially now that all of the MDs are getting deployed with the marines. So, the Navy is in the ridiculous position of considering instituting a stop loss order on ER docs, while simultaneously claiming that the specialty is overmanned and refusing to pay to outsource/defer people for residency. AH, the wonders of Navy medicine... 🙄

 

[bb622]

With short staffing and people being deployed. Is the EM education in the Navy good or does it suffer and people come out as sub par EM docs?

 

[jlc060]

According to the HPSP director that gave the presentation at OIS. The NAVY is currently giving NO deferments. There are currently six matches that you can go straight into residency. The number and type change from year to year so contact the program coordinator and find out what the needs of the navy are when it is time for you to match. If you want EM you are probably doing a GMO tour.

 

[Navy Dive Doc]

You will absolutely do a GMO tour before getting a Navy EM residency spot, there are far too many people in the fleet looking for those positions. Interns are not even considered. Like I said, bean counters are screwing up the specialty.
The residencies are actually quite good. They've worked on getting the acuity training up with outsourced rotaitons, and at least at the local hospital, the acuity level has gone up significantly on its own...I don't know why the recent change, but confirmed by several sources. The current first year class at Portsmouth Naval apparently acheived the highest inservice score of any EM residency, military or civilian, on themost recent exam.
I assume by "six matches" that you mean six specialties that often take interns striaght through. EM is not one of those. They are....IM, FP, OB, Psych, Peds routinely and some other specialties occasionally. I can't think of a 6th that consistently takes interns.

 

[bb622]

Thanks for the information.
Isnt the straight through number going to go down to 5 with the outsourcing of peds docs.

 

[thenavysurgeon]

'The current first year class at Portsmouth Naval apparently acheived the highest inservice score of any EM residency, military or civilian, on the most recent exam'

The collective in-service scores in a program do not reflect the overall quality of the program...likely, these residents had TIME to read and study, and were given didactic lectures. A lot of hard-core EM residencies have low in-service scores. This was also true of my own civilian, academic General surgery program. Our in-service scores sucked. We all passed our boards, however. I would use the rotation locations as a measure of EM program quality, since its well known that military ERs are slow. You want to rotate as much as possible at a level-1, high acuity facility, likely a civilian one.

thenavysurgeon

 

[Dr. Wexler]

After doing a 2 or 3 year GMO tour, how hard it EM to get compared to the civillian sector? Do some people who want EM simply not get it or do those who really want it find a way(additional GMO tour or something else).