Navy EM training?

[Beantown D.O.]

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Which of the two navy Emergency Medicine training programs is the largest in terms of residents/faculty?

If location is not important, which of the two training hospitals would you pick and why?

 

[backrow]

Can I vote for none?

EM is in my opinion the one poor area in military GME. All of the ER's in the Navy are more like acute care clinics and I just can't see how someone can get a true EM education being trained in a navy facility. With that being said I would think Bethesda would be the worst of the options and the other two would probably be tied. I can only speak from a med student perspective though.

 

[VolatileNavyDoc]

Bethesda doesn't have an EM training program.

San Diego is bigger. They see more pts. They have more residents. I would pick San Diego for multiple reasons. They have a lot of interaction with the Navy and Marines (your future patients and bosses.) Also, you're probably going to do a GMO tour, and if you're in SD, there's less of a chance you'll have to move after intern year. The hospital is nice, and in a safe part of town (good if you have a family and want to live within walking distance). The staff are laid back, and I didn't really see any of the petty b/s that guys on this post see (except from an AF Ped Surgeon). Also, if you have to live in a big city, SD is one of the best. These may not be the most enlightening reasons to go one place over the other, but there they are.

 

[backrow]

Bethesda doesn't have an EM training program.

Even more reason not to go to Bethesda 🙂 I guess that explains why I never remember seeing any EM residents there.

I agree with Balboa being in a nicer town and a nicer area of town. Portsmouth is pretty much the ghetto downtown except for a couple streets.

 

[swampthing]

Which of the two navy Emergency Medicine training programs is the largest in terms of residents/faculty?

If location is not important, which of the two training hospitals would you pick and why?

I know a few people who got accepted into Navy EM: A few at San Diego and at Portsmouth. From talking to them, my opinion of Navy EM Residencies is mediocre at best. Here are my reasons why:
1) Everyone knows that the best EM programs have good trauma training. Unfortunately, both Naval Medical Centers are NOT level 1 trauma centers. The Navy residents must rotate at civilian hospitals to get this training.
2) The Navy EM programs are hurting for faculty. A good number of the EM attendings get deployed to the "sandbox" (for obvious reasons, they're an asset in battle). You could have a great attending physician, then all of sudden s/he is deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan for 6-7 months. So for 6-7 months, you lose a great teacher.
3) In general, the patients in the military are fairly healthy with good access to medical care. So the pathology is not going to be as diverse as say working at an inner city ER where indigent patients come in. Indigent patients have poor access to medical care and sometimes come in with advanced pathology ("interesting cases").

If you still want to train with the Navy, then I believe both programs (San Diego and Portsmouth) are fairly similar and offer equal training. So it all depends if you like to train in sunny southern California or in Virginia (Portsmouth is near Virginia Beach area). Both are great areas to live. However, Virginia is definitely more affordable.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

I'm starting as staff at one of the aforementioned programs. Give me a PM in a couple of weeks after I've worked a few shifts and I'll give you a bit more info.

 

[Beantown D.O.]

reviewing the curriculum through the SAEM residency catalog...If the survey is accurate, I see that residents from SD rotate through several civilian hospitals, while residents in Portsmouth do all rotations within their hospital.

Can I assume that EM residents in san diego get a broader education? Can I take it a step further, and assume that the education at san diego is better since residents rotate to level I trauma centers?

current and past residents at these programs please give your perspective...

thanks!

 

[MedicalCorpse]

(except from an AF Ped Surgeon)

Is he follicularly challenged with a French surname?

If so, that would be my infamous Dr. Bete Noir.

If not, well, he would join the long list of prima donna pediatric surgeons I met in the USAF...including one at Wilford Hall who covered up a patient's open belly on the table, so that he, his residents, and med students could eat Chinese food, while Mary, my future chief resident, was stuck watching the anesthesia bellows go up and down and up and down for half an hour, while zero surgery was being performed. I came in to relieve her while on call, and was shocked and outraged. Of course, he was too "precious" a resource to get reprimanded by the surgeon-controlled Command for this stunt.

Perhaps it was years of this kind of negative karma, in the tradition of my religion's Threefold Law, which made the private plane he was piloting crash. I'm just sorry that his innocent daughter had to die, as well, in karmic recompense for his actions.

--
R

 

[The White Coat Investor]

reviewing the curriculum through the SAEM residency catalog...If the survey is accurate, I see that residents from SD rotate through several civilian hospitals, while residents in Portsmouth do all rotations within their hospital.

Can I assume that EM residents in san diego get a broader education? Can I take it a step further, and assume that the education at san diego is better since residents rotate to level I trauma centers?

current and past residents at these programs please give your perspective...

thanks!

Portsmouth residents also rotate at outside civilian institutions, primarily for trauma training.

 

[former military]

Is he follicularly challenged with a French surname?

If so, that would be my infamous Dr. Bete Noir.

If not, well, he would join the long list of prima donna pediatric surgeons I met in the USAF...including one at Wilford Hall who covered up a patient's open belly on the table, so that he, his residents, and med students could eat Chinese food, while Mary, my future chief resident, was stuck watching the anesthesia bellows go up and down and up and down for half an hour, while zero surgery was being performed. I came in to relieve her while on call, and was shocked and outraged. Of course, he was too "precious" a resource to get reprimanded by the surgeon-controlled Command for this stunt.

Perhaps it was years of this kind of negative karma, in the tradition of my religion's Threefold Law, which made the private plane he was piloting crash. I'm just sorry that his innocent daughter had to die, as well, in karmic recompense for his actions.

--
R

I remember that dude... the king of moonlighting during duty hours. It was amazing how unmoved the whmc gen surgery dept was by his death.
We were all ordered to put on the blue suit and attend the memorial service en masse. Similarly unmoved 3+ yrs later when one of the surgery residents killed himself after being tossed from the program for drinking on duty. Instead of rehab, they assigned him to primary care clinic out of state. That didn't work out too well.

but don't let me get anyone down.. the military is a friendly place to work!🙂