Medical draft?

[BOHICA-FIGMO]

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Here is a hypothetical for everyone. Given the sorry state of manning in the military medical corps, how likely do you think a medical draft would be if we had to deal with an unexpected contingency (e.g., North Korea, Iran, Syria)? IMO, I see it being HIGHLY likely. Your thoughts?

 

[UCBShocker]

Here is a hypothetical for everyone. Given the sorry state of manning in the military medical corps, how likely do you think a medical draft would be if we had to deal with an unexpected contingency (e.g., North Korea, Iran, Syria)? IMO, I see it being HIGHLY likely. Your thoughts?

I doubt it... but I am really not qualified to speak on such a subject. They would probably just contract out and have civilians take over the state-side jobs or something.

 

[deuist]

I doubt it... but I am really not qualified to speak on such a subject. They would probably just contract out and have civilians take over the state-side jobs or something.

The military already uses civilians at the MEPS where I had my physical. Rumsfield may try to push for more civilians in the VA's and on base hospitals.

 

[Croatalus_atrox]

The military already uses civilians at the MEPS where I had my physical. Rumsfield may try to push for more civilians in the VA's and on base hospitals.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is completely different from the Department of Defense. Medical personnel at the VA hospitals are civil service employees, not military. Besides which, use of civilian MEPS doctors has been going on for a long time...in fact, no one I know has been seen by a military doctor for their MEPS physicals. DODMERB physicals are different though; sometimes they are done at the nearest military medical facility, so those might be done by a military physician.

Back to the original topic. It could happen, but the draft is so unpopular that I imagine all other options would have to be exhausted before they would resort to drafting medical personnel. It would also depend on the public opinion of the conflict as well. Instituting any kind of draft for a poorly justified Iraq style conflict without clear public support would probably be political suicide for the party in power. About the only scenario where such a draft might be well-received would be a Pearl Harbor type attack that could be provably linked to the nation we'd be in conflict with.