Army GMO

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in motion

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Hi, I am planning to switch programs and thus need to do an Army GMO.

Can someone give thoughts/advice regarding:
-Ft. Hood - did you like the base, places to live, how is parking, how is the environment in general?
-Flight vs non-flight - advantages, changes to work life, deployments, etc?
-Pay - is there an increase in pay? how much?
-Other advice as someone preparing to be a GMO?

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Hi, I am planning to switch programs and thus need to do an Army GMO.

Can someone give thoughts/advice regarding:
-Ft. Hood - did you like the base, places to live, how is parking, how is the environment in general?
-Flight vs non-flight - advantages, changes to work life, deployments, etc?
-Pay - is there an increase in pay? how much?
-Other advice as someone preparing to be a GMO?

Not sure about Ft Hood, never lived there. If you have any control over where you end up try to be in a spot that is near to a program you want to match too. Face time is important.

Flight seems to be more cushy than non-flight. I suppose it depends on the battalion though.

You will get a 15k bonus annually, as well as the VSP. Although the bonus structures have changed recently so someone else can chime in on that.

The best advice for a GMO is to not do one. But if it's in your future, get ready to fight for your medical career. GMOs are not medical positions, they are administrative with a little bit of sick call thrown in. Keep up with your reading, get licensed so you can moonlight, and try to stay close to your chosen specialty somehow, someway.

Good luck.
 
Hi, I am planning to switch programs and thus need to do an Army GMO.

Can someone give thoughts/advice regarding:
-Ft. Hood - did you like the base, places to live, how is parking, how is the environment in general?
-Flight vs non-flight - advantages, changes to work life, deployments, etc?
-Pay - is there an increase in pay? how much?
-Other advice as someone preparing to be a GMO?

1) hood-- depends on what you do. most people don't like it, but others tolerate it. your unit will make/break you more than location. I've gone to NTC with 2 different CAV BCTs and 3rd CR. no one in those units had any degree of fondness for their BDE. but that's probably true of most BDEs. most people hated Killeen, but the closer you get to Austin the better.
2) flight vs non-flight. flight you're generally more protected from line unit nonsense but not immune.
3) pay- flight gets a little more I think -$125 a month?- for flight pay.
4) know the units and their rotations. for instance, 2ABCT, 1CD is prepping to deploy to Korea. when they return they will reset and begin the process over again. time things correctly and you can at least time things to limit your deployments/NTC to 1 each. if you only have 1 year of GMO time (do you know how many years you'll be doing GMO?), you may be able to avoid deployment/NTC altogether. time it poorly and owe more time you may end up doing 2 depending on how long you're with the unit. or, if you are seeking deployments, you can find a unit getting ready to go. WTU slots do not deploy, but are higher visibility and you are dealing with soldiers who mostly aren't wounded warriors but are more dumped to the WTU from line units to wait for their medical separations to be processed...

if you choose wisely you may have a good go of it. choose poorly and, well, at least it's only a couple of years.

--your friendly neighborhood only the penitent man shall pass caveman
 
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1) hood-- depends on what you do. most people don't like it, but others tolerate it. your unit will make/break you more than location. I've gone to NTC with 2 different CAV BCTs and 3rd CR. no one in those units had any degree of fondness for their BDE. but that's probably true of most BDEs. most people hated Killeen, but the closer you get to Austin the better.
2) flight vs non-flight. flight you're generally more protected from line unit nonsense but not immune.
3) pay- flight gets a little more I think -$125 a month?- for flight pay.
4) know the units and their rotations. for instance, 2ABCT, 1CD is prepping to deploy to Korea. when they return they will reset and begin the process over again. time things correctly and you can at least time things to limit your deployments/NTC to 1 each. if you only have 1 year of GMO time (do you know how many years you'll be doing GMO?), you may be able to avoid deployment/NTC altogether. time it poorly and owe more time you may end up doing 2 depending on how long you're with the unit. or, if you are seeking deployments, you can find a unit getting ready to go. WTU slots do not deploy, but are higher visibility and you are dealing with soldiers who mostly aren't wounded warriors but are more dumped to the WTU from line units to wait for their medical separations to be processed...

if you choose wisely you may have a good go of it. choose poorly and, well, at least it's only a couple of years.

--your friendly neighborhood only the penitent man shall pass caveman

thanks for the reply.
what do you mean "more protected from the line nonsense"?
and how do you find out the units and their rotation?
 
I would do flight all the way. The nonsense comment from my experience is really about culture. The culture in an aviation unit is just better than any of the other traditional units. SF units are obviously not traditional units and you can't fill those as a GMO.

In aviation units you are the doc and that is sort of celebrated I guess. The pilots don't want to be grounded and you have that complete power to do that to them. They collectively are polite, glad to see you and get their upslip. When you fix their problem and keep them flying you are their favorite. A lot of the problems have clearly laid out steps to keep people flying. Flight requires more admin work given the work associated with inputting their physicals into AERO but it is minor and trade off with usually less sick call from pilots. You may have to deal with flight accidents and maybe an ARMS inspection but overall not crazy. You get to ride along! Not often depending on schedule but can be fun. When flight goes to the field you are near power, a runway, tents, air conditioning. Helicopters are expensive, need to be able to check the weather, pilots don't sleep on the ground.

From my time with nonflight units I felt a little abused and to be honest sometimes unwanted. Since they feel no one should see a doc they kind of don't want your input at times. Sometimes they view you as just a person who put people on profiles. Now when they need you then they want you but since they don't require you to approve their health to do their jobs you are just not really valued or valued as quickly like a flight unit. Lots of trips to field environments and sometimes tents, sometimes rucking places, sometimes swampy.

If not doing flight then at least go to an airborne unit. The thrill of jumping out of airplanes seems to make up for everything else because my patients all want to go back to their airborne units if they could.

Current GMO bonus is 20K.

If you want opportunity to apply for residency this coming cycle pick a one year assignment. Go Honduras, Egypt, Korea, anywhere with 1 year commitment.
 
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I would do flight all the way. The nonsense comment from my experience is really about culture. The culture in an aviation unit is just better than any of the other traditional units. SF units are obviously not traditional units and you can't fill those as a GMO.

In aviation units you are the doc and that is sort of celebrated I guess. The pilots don't want to be grounded and you have that complete power to do that to them. They collectively are polite, glad to see you and get their upslip. When you fix their problem and keep them flying you are their favorite. A lot of the problems have clearly laid out steps to keep people flying. Flight requires more admin work given the work associated with inputting their physicals into AERO but it is minor and trade off with usually less sick call from pilots. You may have to deal with flight accidents and maybe an ARMS inspection but overall not crazy. You get to ride along! Not often depending on schedule but can be fun. When flight goes to the field you are near power, a runway, tents, air conditioning. Helicopters are expensive, need to be able to check the weather, pilots don't sleep on the ground.

From my time with nonflight units I felt a little abused and to be honest sometimes unwanted. Since they feel no one should see a doc they kind of don't want your input at times. Sometimes they view you as just a person who put people on profiles. Now when they need you then they want you but since they don't require you to approve their health to do their jobs you are just not really valued or valued as quickly like a flight unit. Lots of trips to field environments and sometimes tents, sometimes rucking places, sometimes swampy.

If not doing flight then at least go to an airborne unit. The thrill of jumping out of airplanes seems to make up for everything else because my patients all want to go back to their airborne units if they could.

Current GMO bonus is 20K.

If you want opportunity to apply for residency this coming cycle pick a one year assignment. Go Honduras, Egypt, Korea, anywhere with 1 year commitment.
20K? Did we get a raise?
 
thanks for the reply.
what do you mean "more protected from the line nonsense"?
and how do you find out the units and their rotation?

@TurtleDO2012 covers it well. "line" GMO's (62B) are viewed as a necessary evil, and you'll never see a more malingering/whiny group of people in your life. some are motivated to get better, but most want to ride profiles and sham. contrast this to flight, where they want to get better. commands also treat you differently. turtle covered it well. if I had to choose I'd choose flight.

unit rotations require some research. to be honest I've found facebook is a good resource-- especially FRG groups-- even if they don't post anticipated deployments (usually they do to some degree) you can infer if they're going to NTC that a deployment is probably coming 4-6 months later. or if they came back from a deployment 2-3 years ago they're likely due again. if a unit is deployed during your intern year, they'll be back resetting when you're a GMO. the deployed units will be easy to figure out.

the other thing that helps is connections to current BDE surgeons or connections inside different brigades. most units know over a year in advance what they're doing, you can't just plan a deployment spur of the moment. that information is harder to find but you'd be surprised how small the army can be sometimes.

--your friendly neighborhood secret agent caveman
 
20K? Did we get a raise?
Not a raise, just the new consolidated special pays system. They combined what we used to get: ASP (15K) and VSP (5K) into one IP (20K). If you did ASP last year and are going to be continuing as a GMO for the next year you should be requesting your IP around now. (people going back to residency have to wait till they get back to residency to request the resident 8k IP)
 
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In terms of advice for starting GMO-
Just do the right thing for the patient and don't be complacent. That usually means despite majority of the complaints you see being benign do not be dismissive. Occasionally someone has a real problem that is still benign that really no one previously took the time to figure it out. From my limited time I'll cite 2 very simple examples. A patient was complaining of foot pain and saw the unit PA probably at least 4 times before me, on profiles for a while, was pegged as a lazy soldier by the PA which was repeated to his command, discussion of trying to separate or move him was occurring. I knew none of this since I was new. I had him take his boots off. He had a gnarly blister and I took care of it. Problem solved. He was shocked. He said no one had actually taken the time to look at his feet. The PA did order X-rays and was probably concerned for fracture but still didn't do the basic foot exam. It can be annoying to tell people to take their boots, blouse, or whatever but do the full exam indicated for the complaint. The PA got into the routine thinking everyone just wanted a profile to avoid a ruck march or whatever. Second example was a young woman who complained of hip pain and was barely passing PT test. Saw multiple other people over the course of 9 months. Discussion of her being lazy was circulating. Found out she ran very competitively in high school winning some cross country races, felt tired, had some thick rashes that would come and go at times. Got dermatology involved and rheumatology involved and confirmed she had psoriatic arthritis. 2 instances of really just doing what we are suppose to do, listen, examine the patient, and investigate. I am certainly not suggesting million dollar workups on people, just use your training, look stuff up, be curious, and use the referral process.

Resist the temptation of thinking all patients are lazy, profile riders, malingering. Some 100% are but overall they are the minority despite the line at sick call every morning. A lot of people just don't have any common sense and do what they are told which is go to sick call for anything and everything. The DOD system is set up to encourage that because we don't trust anyone, disability rating is tied to being seen, command can't let people take a break without a profile or a sick call slip. Command also doesn't want to let a vomiting patient be sent home without the doc saying it's ok because he/she thinks what if they were to die at home and then held responsible for not sending them to the doc. Risk aversion is very prevalent in even the most minor decision at times. Patients think they can prevent themselves from getting sick (I was getting a cough and runny nose of 1 day and wanted to prevent PNA/spreading it/whatever) by seeing us, they think we can help them recover faster from injury at super human speeds, and etc. Like medicine no matter where you are there is a lot of expectation management and education with patients, medics, command, and colleagues.

Your experience of a GMO will be entirely your own. Enjoy it the best you can. Despite the negatives I enjoyed my 4 year TY fellowship called GMO and glad to be moving on but would not want to repeat it and would not want any further time on the line side.

Good luck.
 
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Resist the temptation of thinking all patients are lazy, profile riders, malingering. Some 100% are but overall they are the minority despite the line at sick call every morning.

2 caveats to this rule. 1) if they are deployed. 2) if they have an APFT coming up. if both 1 and 2 are true, you'll get jaded very quickly.

--your friendly neighborhood nearly out of sh*ts to give caveman
 
Hiding amongst the worried well and fakers are patients with real pathology. Your medics and midlevels won't find them. On average, neither will the typical GMO. Maybe you can be better than that or maybe you shouldn't plan to do a job half trained if you have a choice.
 
Hiding amongst the worried well and fakers are patients with real pathology. Your medics and midlevels won't find them. On average, neither will the typical GMO. Maybe you can be better than that or maybe you shouldn't plan to do a job half trained if you have a choice.

this is what keeps me up at night (figuratively speaking) and what makes me so frustrated with the profile riding d-bags. I know GI pretty well. but it's almost like they know that certain things will get them an evac. I've had 10/10 chest pain "passing out on a run," laughing and smiling awaiting his transfer. everything (to include stress test) negative. happened to occur during his failure of his 2 mile run of his APFT.

I don't worry as much as the real kids being mixed in with the d-bags (since I take every new encounter at face value), it's the boy who cried wolf thing. the one who comes in every week or two complaining of this or that, who eventually really has something. even the d-bags get sick sometimes.

the hardest part to me is having my own level of cynicism/saltiness without having it rub off on the medics. they don't get to be salty, I do.

--your friendly neighborhood wtf you actually have a lis franc fracture caveman
 
I kind of liked the other thread where he resurrected some pgg, gastrapathy and 61N from 7 years ago. Makes you wonder where the pre-meds that were arguing with them ended up (and how happy they are there).
 
In terms of advice for starting GMO-

Good post. I would add....be also weary of those in your unit who never come to medical for anything non-mandatory. We all have our sick-call commandos, you'll have eyes on them all the time...but be cautious with respect to those who are dragged down, or don't present when they obviously should have for an acute injury. They might be hiding something!

couple cases on my ship: young AD male, 'dragged' down by his chief to medical for a persistent cough. Xray, EKG, TTE later reveals a 50 mm ASD causing severe cardiopulmonary strain (thank you MEPS physical)....he went to CT surgery for a median sternotomy to repair, actually did quite well!

another case: the only sailor on my ship to successfully commit suicide (GSW to the temple, wasn't found until hours later, bled out) had never come to medical for anything...no current mental health diagnosis, nothing previous. I wish he had come down for something, I might've been able to tease something out. But what can you do about the patient that never presents?

So what do you do? Go looking for trouble, drag people in to be seen? No, certainly not, just keep a watchful eye out. And Xray everything!
 
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