Deployment Tempo for Flight Surgeons - 2023

[Brouillet2017]

Hi all-

I am curious if any current/recent Navy flight surgeons can comment on their deployment experiences in the context of the current FS shortage and tensions in the Pacific. Any reflections, assessments, or predictions for how this may change from those who are/have been experiencing it would be appreciated. Thanks!

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[DrMetal]

Hi all-

I am curious if any current/recent Navy flight surgeons can comment on their deployment experiences in the context of the current FS shortage and tensions in the Pacific. Any reflections, assessments, or predictions for how this may change from those who are/have been experiencing it would be appreciated. Thanks!

Not a flight surgeon, but know many, and have been operational myself.

Hard to forecast this stuff. You could be assigned to a squadron with a high op tempo and deploy a lot, you could be assigned to a clinic and never leave home.

Safe to assume you will deploy in some capacity. Whether is high, medium or low op tempo is hard to predict.

What are your concerns?

 

[Brouillet2017]

What are your concerns?

Less concerned and more curious how the reported lack of flight surgeons is affecting deployments for the docs they have. It's definitely hard to predict, but sometimes folks in the thick of things now have good insight to the real-time changes in this field.

 

[orbitsurgMD]

In the past, urgent needs to fill a forward gapped billet were met by TDY assignments of flight surgeons who were in stateside billets: flight surgeons working in flightline clinics who were not assigned to a squadron, or even from overseas clinics, if any were in a given area of operations, with stateside backfill to the gapped overseas clinic. I had the privilege of being assigned from NAS Washington (at now-Joint Base Andrews) to backfill a clinic billet in 5th Fleet in Bahrain when the clinic flight surgeon was detailed to a gapped billet on a deployed carrier in the AOR. It was a 3-month assignment. I got the tasker on a Monday and was in the Gulf on that Friday.

 

[pawprint]

Current flight surgeon here…current op tempo is very high across the board. My last duty station had 23 flight surgeons when I showed up…when I left it had 8. The op tempo for squadrons deploying hasn’t changed at all, so us remaining flight surgeons had to cover down as others got out. I spent almost my entire 2 years there deployed or on det somewhere.

The irony is the more they deploy us remaining flight surgeons, the more they drive us out of the military. I refuse to go back to a military residency and pick up more owed payback because I know with my flight surgeon wings, the navy will come calling to keep deploying me.

I’m finishing my payback in this last billet and then saying “see ya later”. I always knew I would deploy, and wanted the experience. But the navy has kept me from home for far too long at this point, all because they don’t have the manpower and aren’t willing to decrease the op tempo. We aren’t even at war anymore. I’m done.

 

[DrMetal]

In the past, urgent needs to fill a forward gapped billet were met by TDY assignments of flight surgeons who were in stateside billets: flight surgeons working in flightline clinics who were not assigned to a squadron, or even from overseas clinics, if any were in a given area of operations, with stateside backfill to the gapped overseas clinic. I had the privilege of being assigned from NAS Washington (at now-Joint Base Andrews) to backfill a clinic billet in 5th Fleet in Bahrain when the clinic flight surgeon was detailed to a gapped billet on a deployed carrier in the AOR. It was a 3-month assignment. I got the tasker on a Monday and was in the Gulf on that Friday.

Is true during more recent times as well. I've seen FS get deployed many ways. So if that's what your afraid of, may not want to go that route. Then again, it could be fun.

That's why I chose sea duty. You get orders to a ship. Only go when/where the ship goes. You can't be plucked off and sent elsewhere (I don't mean that literally of course, but it usually doesn't happen).

 

[layman_3]

The irony is the more they deploy us remaining flight surgeons, the more they drive us out of the military. I refuse to go back to a military residency and pick up more owed payback because I know with my flight surgeon wings, the navy will come calling to keep deploying me.

The Navy doesn't seem to care that they have a retention problem in the medical corps. They just keep asking "Why are people leaving?" as if it's some big mystery. Stuff like this will just continue to spiral.

 

[orbitsurgMD]

Is true during more recent times as well. I've seen FS get deployed many ways. So if that's what your afraid of, may not want to go that route. Then again, it could be fun.

That's why I chose sea duty. You get orders to a ship. Only go when/where the ship goes. You can't be plucked off and sent elsewhere (I don't mean that literally of course, but it usually doesn't happen).

I went ASW when I became a flight surgeon because I wanted to deploy, and I did. I liked my squadron experience (Navy medicine, not quite as much.) My TDY came during my second and final tour as I had already dropped my papers and had a residency waiting on the civilian side. No regrets, there. I got the specialty I wanted and the fellowship I wanted. My internship cohort who went to my specialty got (IMO, anyway) a worse deal: no fellowships, one tapped to go to a flight surgeon billet after four years in the fleet before residency. That reality should be made known. If you spent three years refining microsurgery skills, being sent to a flightline clinic where you have no hope of even maintaining that skill (nevermind advancing those skills as would be typical) you are being treated poorly. The lame "needs of the Navy" excuses are unacceptable; that kind of tasking is abuse of a medical colleague willfully done by a malevolent (and I really do mean that) and indifferent Navy medical establishment, the same one that permits other medical officers never to do a day's work afloat and progress in their careers nicely. The attrition is deserved.

 

[orbitsurgMD]

The Navy doesn't seem to care that they have a retention problem in the medical corps. They just keep asking "Why are people leaving?" as if it's some big mystery. Stuff like this will just continue to spiral.

As long as the supply line via HPSP continues, this will continue. HPSP is the main supply line of candidates for billets afloat, and has been for decades. They really don't care that you leave and would prefer if you did.

 

[Onefellswoop87]

As long as the supply line via HPSP continues, this will continue. HPSP is the main supply line of candidates for billets afloat, and has been for decades. They really don't care that you leave and would prefer if you did.

Exactly this.
When the numbers dropped around 2006 (2008?), they added a 20k HPSP sign on bonus. Supply hasn’t significant dropped so why fix what isn’t breaking more? Vast majority of docs (docs to be) sign up through HPSP not other avenues.
DOD cares about recruitment not retention. They switched to blended retirement cause it saved them money not because it was a better deal for the member. They’d rather you get out as at 5 or 10 years. Local commands might care about local morale and retention but that’s cause people care about people, systems care about numbers and money.

 

[orbitsurgMD]

Exactly this.
When the numbers dropped around 2006 (2008?), they added a 20k HPSP sign on bonus. Supply hasn’t significant dropped so why fix what isn’t breaking more? Vast majority of docs (docs to be) sign up through HPSP not other avenues.
DOD cares about recruitment not retention. They switched to blended retirement cause it saved them money not because it was a better deal for the member. They’d rather you get out as at 5 or 10 years. Local commands might care about local morale and retention but that’s cause people care about people, systems care about numbers and money.

Every once in awhile, the services get bitten by their nasty little pet plan. They can't lose too many mid-career people, especially experienced senior enlisted, they are necessary for readiness in the event of wartime operations where trainers are needed. In medical, that lesson is never learned largely because of the generally weak medical corps leadership where advocacy for the corps membership is sidelined for useless crap like cheerleading diversity.

 

[Onefellswoop87]

Every once in awhile, the services get bitten by their nasty little pet plan. They can't lose too many mid-career people, especially experienced senior enlisted, they are necessary for readiness in the event of wartime operations where trainers are needed. In medical, that lesson is never learned largely because of the generally weak medical corps leadership where advocacy for the corps membership is sidelined for useless crap like cheerleading diversity.

I agree with you. But I also see how the DoD has been operating with recruitment and retention. I don’t agree with their plan; I don’t think it’s the smart long term plan, but when you only get a budget one year at a time and that doesn’t even come on time by Congress, good luck making smart long term plans.
When we have a war with a near-peer advisory and we don’t have air superiority, we’ll see that medical needs to be innovate and adaptable, but it’s hard to do either without personnel. There’ll be a massive push for recruitment (and retention) but then we’ll see a scramble to quickly learn that medical should probably be more than an afterthought of planning and manning.

 

[Brouillet2017]

My last duty station had 23 flight surgeons when I showed up…when I left it had 8. The op tempo for squadrons deploying hasn’t changed at all, so us remaining flight surgeons had to cover down as others got out. I spent almost my entire 2 years there deployed or on det somewhere.

That's a significant gap - I wonder if those FS billets are unfilled because of the supposed push for OMO instead of GMO (thus decreasing their historic pool to draw docs from) or because no one going GMO is choosing FS?

 

[orbitsurgMD]

That's a significant gap - I wonder if those FS billets are unfilled because of the supposed push for OMO instead of GMO (thus decreasing their historic pool to draw docs from) or because no one going GMO is choosing FS?

There is risk that with shortfalls in numbers of FSs that new residency grads who are prior flight surgeons will discover that "once a flight surgeon, always a flight surgeon" and will get a squadron assignment.

 

[pawprint]

There is risk that with shortfalls in numbers of FSs that new residency grads who are prior flight surgeons will discover that "once a flight surgeon, always a flight surgeon" and will get a squadron assignment.

^this.

One thing I’ve discovered in my time out in the fleet is that the line really doesn’t understand navy doctors career progression/goals. Everyone asks me about “when I’m a carrier SMO someday”….

My goal was to be a Navy pediatrician. Not an aircraft carrier SMO. Or an hospital CO. And I shouldn’t be looked down upon for that. I’m very excited to care for Navy families, but looks like I’ll be doing it as a civilian since the navy has shown me it cared more about my flight surgeon wings than it did my passion to care for service members kids.

My role models when I signed up for Navy HPSP were these career Navy Pediatricians who had awesome navy careers. Deployed a couple times, but they did so as pediatricians. Not as adult family medicine doctors doing “flight medicine”. I was fine doing that type of medicine for a little bit, and I’m proud of the life experience I got, but I don’t want to spend a navy career constantly getting called away from my specialty to fill these flight surgeon gaps.

 

[armytrainingsir]

My goal was to be a Navy pediatrician. Not an aircraft carrier SMO. Or an hospital CO. And I shouldn’t be looked down upon for that. I’m very excited to care for Navy families, but looks like I’ll be doing it as a civilian since the navy has shown me it cared more about my flight surgeon wings than it did my passion to care for service members kids.

Yup. Those days are over, at least for now.
Military medicine’s embrace of clinical medicine across the entire breadth of medical specialties is a bygone era. It was how military medicine was shaping up in the 80’s and 90’s. Physicians in uniform presenting at national meetings were common, at least in my specialty. You can argue if the supposed end of the Cold War, Clinton era cuts, or 9/11 dealt the fatal blow; regardless, the only thing the military seems to care about right now is Role 1 and 2 care. There is still enough capacity lingering in the MEDCENs for Role 3 to take care of itself for awhile longer. Role 4 will be the Tricare network or VA going forward.
Ultimately, this may be brilliant or a huge disaster. I vote disaster.
But, as always, the enemy in our next conflict will get a vote too.