nubbey24 said:
I just got an interview offer from USUHS, and honestly am very excited about it. I am mostly interested in Family Medicine, and am drawn to the military form of medicine because I am also interested in gaining the extra knowledge of field medicine. My question is whether some of you who have experience with military medicine think that this trend for care to be crummy and physicians to be ill prepared also translates into primary care. It seems like most of the cases everyone is speaking of are surgical or emergency room physicians. I am just curious because this is obviously going to be a huge decision for me. Thank you for responding.
I was a USAF Family Doc, and in my opinion, you should stay clear of military Primary care at this point. You may read my "AVOID MILITARY MED" thread which I began posting on while I was active duty. You may also want to look at the USAFP web site. This is the official military medicine web site (so realize it will be pro-military) but even still, look back over the past few years of issues, specifically editorial, and each services rep pages. They describe mass undermanning, and describe the clinics as "war zones", which, while over the top, is quite accurate.
Primary care in the military world has all the challenges of civilian Primary care with the added problems of lack of support staff, lack of trained support staff (you will have an 18 yo as your "nurse"), lack of supportive admin, lack of charts, your own lack of experience to start, you covering for other docs deployed on top of your own patients, patient panel sizes in reality of 2000-3000+, and NUMEROUS other duties and restrictions that will compromise the care of your patients and the quality of life for you, your family, and your staff. The $$$ for doing a single tour and then getting out is not terrible, but you probably are not thinking $$ if you are thinking military primary care. Why start a career that you will wish was over 3 months into your first tour of duty? Why work for an organization that really could care less about you, quality, excellence etc........todays military medicine is really about METRICS, MONEY and Promotion....sad but true. Yesterdays USAF core values are todays lip service. Yes, our troops need docs, but nobody (including you)needs todays military healthcare plan.