DOD Employee Physicians

[DrSambo]

I'm a civilian family physician. I've recently been offered a position in an Army clinic as a DOD employee. Skimming through this forum, it seems to be mostly geared toward active duty folks, but perhaps I'm mistaken with that. Is this forum an appropriate place to seek wisdom for an Army employed civilian physician position? If not, any recommendations for other forums that would be more appropriate? Thanks in advance.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[HighPriest]

Some of it will depend upon where you’ll be. Different facilities have different patient draws. Generally speaking, no matter where you go, the average age and overall health of the patients you’ll see with decrease and improve, respectively. You can see family members to include kids of soldiers, and soldiers have a ton of kids by and large.
This is a good place to ask. There are AD FM and IM docs who can comment on the practice type, and usually you would see the same clinic that they would. But you would make a lot more and have a lot less baggage than they do.

 

[DrSambo]

Some of it will depend upon where you’ll be. Different facilities have different patient draws. Generally speaking, no matter where you go, the average age and overall health of the patients you’ll see with decrease and improve, respectively. You can see family members to include kids of soldiers, and soldiers have a ton of kids by and large.
This is a good place to ask. There are AD FM and IM docs who can comment on the practice type, and usually you would see the same clinic that they would. But you would make a lot more and have a lot less baggage than they do.

Thanks for this reply. Quite helpful.
I'm still in the "hiring" phase for this job, but anticipate that I may be looking at a start date perhaps in mid September or so (assuming all the background check stuff, etc. proceeds without any hiccups).
Are there any resources you might recommend I explore to prepare for the job. I'm thinking perhaps training resources unique (or sort of unique) to an Army outpatient setting, such as training stuff for the EMR, etc.
Also, any user-friendly educational stuff about being an employed army physician in general (stuff related to the non-medical side of things such as pay, benefits, etc.) would be useful I think.

 

[HighPriest]

I’ll defer that. I’ve been out long enough that the EMR is, I’m pretty sure, different and I’m not a family doc. Someone else will be able to provide a more accurate comment.

 

[DrSambo]

I’ll defer that. I’ve been out long enough that the EMR is, I’m pretty sure, different and I’m not a family doc. Someone else will be able to provide a more accurate comment.

Fair enough.
Thanks again. 🙂

 

[Gastrapathy]

It’s like the VA except fewer patients, more bureaucratic and with ever changing priorities. You also are largely excluded from leadership positions as the AD folks need them for promotion (except at senior levels but those folks don’t work their way up). But, it won’t be hard.

 

[DrSambo]

It’s like the VA except fewer patients, more bureaucratic and with ever changing priorities. You also are largely excluded from leadership positions as the AD folks need them for promotion (except at senior levels but those folks don’t work their way up). But, it won’t be hard.

Thanks.
Non leadership stuff works okay for me. I'm happy to let the AD folks grab up all of those roles.

 

[pawprint]

You likely won’t be seeing any pediatrics and focusing solely on active duty. The MTF I did my intern year at shut off the family medicine folks from seeing any kids or retirees and had them only seeing young active duty folks for things like chronic back pain and fitness test failures. May not be like that everywhere, but that’s the direction everything is headed it seems.