HPSP + MILMED Questions from a SWO

[Steel_City71]

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Hello all....

I posted almost 1.5 yr ago about transferrring from the SWO side to the USN MC side via HPSP. Well after all that time, alot of help, and a grueling amount of research and phone calls looks like I figured out how to do it. I am several weeks out from "probably" getting resignation orders+ final selection and then commissioning once again as an ENS (hooray) and attending medical school this fall. If anyone has questions about this process I would be happy to help, really turned out to be the unbeaten path.

But I had some questions about deployments, lifestyle, and orders during and after the Navy HPSP Program.

1. HPSP Annual Training: I am attempting to plan a wedding the summer after my freshman year of med school. From what I have read in the handbook and online you pretty much schedule annual training yourself- so it would be fairly easy and straightforward to plan it around an event like a wedding? I wont have to do ODS.

2. GMO Tours:
a. I know what ship life and tempo is like....ships were meant for sea blah blah, always haze gray and UW
b. What is it like being stationed with the USMC? Id assume if you were stationed with such and such MEU you would basically accompany them wherever they go- ship, sand, etc? How long are these deployments typically (obviously these things can change based on international events)?
c. Flight Surgeon/ UMO- As a flight surgeon you would be stationed with various squadrons correct? And deploy with them? And from what I gather on the forum Underwater Medical Officers do not really deploy?
*Duty: I currently stand this all the time, do DOCs have to stand duty with duty sections or are they basically always "on call"? During my training I met some DOCs who stood OOD watches on ships and the such but they told me that was a personal choice.

3. Lifestyle: Yes, I realize what I am asking here it is the military...but I have heard pros and cons to this in the military. I have heard plenty of horror stories from the civilian side about countless 80+ hour weeks in certain specialties and being always on call whilst on the military side you do have your deployments and such but the schedule of a GMO or some of the shore based DOCs I have talked with does not seem bad at all...How do you all feel the balance is in this department- do you have a decent amount of time with your families?

And if anyone else has any advice I would be more than happy to take it...positive and negative.

 

[pgg]

USMC GMO billets can vary a lot. It's been a long time since I was there, but the "group" side assignments seemed to have a lot more clinic time and a lot less field time than the "division" side. Medically, it's 98% sniffles and URIs and ankle/knee/back pain, with some psych and other shenanigans sprinkled in. A couple times per year real pathology will walk in though, despite the general good health of the population.

MEUs used to be ~7 month deployments. I don't think that's changed.

It's rare for physicians to stand command duty watches, but it happens. I have never been so afflicted. Type and frequency of call depends on specialty, and how many of you the locale has.

Lifestyle is highly variable. In general, military doctors see fewer patients and work fewer hours than civilians, but exceptions abound. Those who volunteer for, or get voluntold for, certain admin/leadership positions can end up working extremely long hours. This varies greatly with specialty and location.

 

[Steel_City71]

Okay, thats what I figured, alot of variablity- definitely not possible to tack down a certain career path or know anything for sure. But its good to learn as much as I can about all the different experiences.

It seems like alot of folks here have gripes with the officer vs. Admin battle and the admin vs. clinical. especially with those volunteer/told positions your talking about. Admin is really not at all what I am interested in (most of my job as a SWO) are there certain specialties or jobs that you would stay away from if you didnt want to do admin? I think at the end of the day I would much rather pass on admin opportunities and focus on patients/clinical if there is any choice.

 

[Steel_City71]

Does anyone have experience with planning annual training? Would it be easy to plan around a wedding in the summer after freshman year of medical school?

 

[KettleCorn]

Does anyone have experience with planning annual training? Would it be easy to plan around a wedding in the summer after freshman year of medical school?

If you just get school orders it shouldn't be a problem since you can schedule those whenever you want. Your wedding planning will probably depend more on your school's schedule or whatever you decide to do during the summer (research, etc).

 

[Kingfisher]

Hello all....

*Duty: I currently stand this all the time, do DOCs have to stand duty with duty sections or are they basically always "on call"? During my training I met some DOCs who stood OOD watches on ships and the such but they told me that was a personal choice.

3. Lifestyle: Yes, I realize what I am asking here it is the military...but I have heard pros and cons to this in the military. I have heard plenty of horror stories from the civilian side about countless 80+ hour weeks in certain specialties and being always on call whilst on the military side you do have your deployments and such but the schedule of a GMO or some of the shore based DOCs I have talked with does not seem bad at all...How do you all feel the balance is in this department- do you have a decent amount of time with your families?

And if anyone else has any advice I would be more than happy to take it...positive and negative.

If you are stationed on a ship as the physician there is a call schedule. The number of providers you have will depend on how often you have to stand call. Carriers usually have the most providers (hospital ships excluded). It could be as often as Q3-Q5 or even as low as port and starboard (Q2). If you are in charge you are always on call.

At home port: Usually it is phone call. You should rarely need to come in because if it is serious enough to have you there, they should be transported to ED. You should have a duty section of corpsman in medical to evaluate and call you if necessary.

Foreign ports: when you have call, you stay aboard. Your #1 job is dealing with the drunk idiots that fall and hit their head climbing into their racks or going down ladders, etc...


By instruction medical personnel aboard ships are exempt from duty section duties. Some docs take it upon themselves to stand duty as OOD or CDO. Simply put, they are stupid! For whatever reason, they get it in their heads that it will be a good thing on their FITREP, or they want to try the whole Navy thing out, or whatever. When they do something like that, they set a dangerous precedent that it's OK for medical to stand watch. That will get it in some SWO's thick head that medical should start pulling their weight with respect to the CDO watchbill because he is tired of standing it every week. (I think you know exactly the type I am talking about). Before long, it is a regular thing, instruction be damned. Resist this temptation.....

 

[Steel_City71]

Thanks for all the feedback!

Okay, on call for medical does not sound bad at all then if it ever comes to that. I can see the foreign ports thing always had plenty of that going on. Medicals other big job on board appears to be walking through the ships formation during all hands calls for the eventual knee-locker.

Yes, I feel like I have gotten a good enough taste of the OOD life already haha- been there so I should have the willpower to resist that temptation but thanks for the heads up. I always heard you had to like wave your Geneva Rights convention or something like that too as medical personnel if you stand those watches.