Some of the people in charge have changed in recent years. The focus has turned away from hard-charging, meat-eating docs who want to hang with the boys. The folks at the top want an egg-head doc who is hell-bent on being a hand holder, whose main job is visiting wives and kids in the hospital while the boys are deployed.
If you hold out long enough, you might not even have to do the Diver PRT because they are trying to take Dive school out of the curriculum, and are starting with eliminating the pullups from the requirement. Well, they are trying to, mainly to get wimps and chicks through.
Imagine trying to be respected as a physician because you are from X Medical School where they didn't teach basic sciences, so you didn't take USMLE Step 1, just put in the waiver and got licensed anyway. Same future awaits UMOs. The divers won't respect you once word gets out you are wearing a Dive Bubble on the sneak. Simply put, it won't mean s*#t. Might want to think twice.
Are you kidding me?
Yes, you are correct that new senior UMO leaders want to tone down the hooyah culture. Why? Because too many doctors were populating the UMO community looking to play diver or SEAL operator instead of practicing medicine. But guess what my badass friend, EOD didn't pay for you to go to dive school and Undersea Medicine isn't at BUMED because UMO's do dive physicals. The UMO program and community exist because of Naval Nuclear Propulsion -- period.
So if you don't like it, take it up with ADM Donald who is the Chief of Undersea Medicine's boss, and thus by extention yours as well. I'd like to see you share your thoughts on what makes a good UMO to ADM Donald's face.....
Will letting "wimps and chicks" through UMOC training usher in the end of the UMO community? Ask the line. The submarine officers and master chiefs that I worked with on many occasions told me that they don't give a damn how "badass" their doctors are. They have come across more than a few wannabe SEAL tools in our community who kicked and screamed when billeted to NSSC jobs. And guess what, they generally don't make a very good impression on the line community.
So yes, I am an egghead doctor who was not honor man at NDSTC, but who frequently practiced the metaphorical hand holding that you scorn. I'm glad that I did that and helped improve the reputation of the UMO community among senior NCO's and the line community. Our patients deserve no less.
And if you think that this outlook applies only to submariners and that the dive community feels differently, think again. Any master diver would take a wimp who can barely do six pullups but knows how to run a dive casualty over a wannabe warrior who is either clueless clinically or out PT'ing all day leaving patient care to the IDC's. Unless, of course, they think that a physician could never understand how to treat the bends unless he can keep up with 23 year old ND3's at the gym. Do you?