Navy Transitional GME-1

[mskar37]

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I've got a couple questions about Navy transitional internships.
I'm a recently commissioned Navy HPSP student who's about to start med school (c/o 2015). I'm interested in doing a GMO tour (FS probably) so I know I'll have to do a transitional GME-1.
If I understand correctly (by all means, correct me if I'm wrong) the only places to do a transitional intern year are NMC San Diego, NMC Porstmouth and NNMC Bethesda.

Can anyone give me advice as to the pros and cons of each of these? Which is the "best"? Who sees the greatest volume of patients? Where is the overall educational experience the best?

 

[pgg]

I'm interested in doing a GMO tour (FS probably) so I know I'll have to do a transitional GME-1.

No, any internship is fine prior to FS.

If I understand correctly (by all means, correct me if I'm wrong) the only places to do a transitional intern year are NMC San Diego, NMC Porstmouth and NNMC Bethesda.

That's right, all the other Navy hospitals are FP programs only.

Can anyone give me advice as to the pros and cons of each of these? Which is the "best"? Who sees the greatest volume of patients? Where is the overall educational experience the best?

Ask again in 4 years. 🙂 Any one of them will be fine. Set your rank list by which city you want to live in.

 

[SuperSoccer19]

I agree most with the "ask this question again in 4 years" remark. Reason being that things change all the time both in the military and I also would imagine there's always the option that you *might* change your mind about specializing vs doing a GMO.

That being said, you can even do an FP internship and do FS/GMO/UMO, etc and that opens your options to LeJeune, Pendelton, Pensacola, Jacksonville, and Bremerton....and who knowns, maybe the numbers will be high enough such that you can even get a deferred internship to a civilian place. If there is something you are leaning towards after your GMO time, its probably best to do an internship in that or else you might have to repeat rotations, do a res-internship, or even repeat the whole internship (or you might have to do this anyway depending on the circumstance).

 

[BOHICA-FIGMO]

I've got a couple questions about Navy transitional internships.
I'm a recently commissioned Navy HPSP student who's about to start med school (c/o 2015). I'm interested in doing a GMO tour (FS probably) so I know I'll have to do a transitional GME-1.
If I understand correctly (by all means, correct me if I'm wrong) the only places to do a transitional intern year are NMC San Diego, NMC Porstmouth and NNMC Bethesda.

Can anyone give me advice as to the pros and cons of each of these? Which is the "best"? Who sees the greatest volume of patients? Where is the overall educational experience the best?

(1) you don't have to be a TI to do a GMO tour. Plenty of medicine, surgery, and family medicine interns do GMO. Few peds, OB, ENT, and Ortho do GMOs; but some do.

(2) Caveat: I am partial to Portsmouth, but have been stationed in D.C. and Portsmouth but never been to San Diego
Bethesda pro: living in D.C. Con: traffic, lower number of patients (though this may change), very high cost of living, and, oh yeah, traffic.
San Diego: never been stationed there so I can't really comment. I've heard the weather is nice and you have access to certain residencies (e.g., ophthomology and derm) that are only available there.
Portsmouth: pros: no fellowships = ready access to attendings during most rotations, very reasonable cost of living, very clean nice hospital. Cons: tunnel traffic, smaller size city
(3) I don't have exact numbers, but we used to joke in medicine at Portsmouth how Bethesda had twice the attendings and half the patients. For everything except OB, you will likely have fewer patients than most major civilian medical centers
(4) among my FP friends, I've heard that Bremerton is the best with Pendleton second, but I have no first hand experience so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[pgg]

(3) I don't have exact numbers, but we used to joke in medicine at Portsmouth how Bethesda had twice the attendings and half the patients. For everything except OB, you will likely have fewer patients than most major civilian medical centers

No joke, it wasn't unusual to have the interns+residents outnumber the ICU patients ... and that was after they closed the step down unit and punted all those non-ICU patients into the ICU.

 

[155HE]

I've got a couple questions about Navy transitional internships.
I'm a recently commissioned Navy HPSP student who's about to start med school (c/o 2015). I'm interested in doing a GMO tour (FS probably) so I know I'll have to do a transitional GME-1.
If I understand correctly (by all means, correct me if I'm wrong) the only places to do a transitional intern year are NMC San Diego, NMC Porstmouth and NNMC Bethesda.

Can anyone give me advice as to the pros and cons of each of these? Which is the "best"? Who sees the greatest volume of patients? Where is the overall educational experience the best?

Can anyone give me advice as to the pros and cons of each of these? Which is the "best"? Who sees the greatest volume of patients? Where is the overall educational experience the best?[/QUOTE]


.

 

[mskar37]

Thanks for the responses, everyone, especially 155HE for your exhausting detail! haha

Another question: has anyone run into issues of not matching into a residency of their desired specialty? This is a common question of my civilian friends, so I figured I'd put it to the board.

And how has active duty Navy life been on your families?

 

[BOHICA-FIGMO]

Thanks for the responses, everyone, especially 155HE for your exhausting detail! haha

Another question: has anyone run into issues of not matching into a residency of their desired specialty? This is a common question of my civilian friends, so I figured I'd put it to the board.

And how has active duty Navy life been on your families?

Hasn't happened to me personally, but I have heard that some people in ultra competitive specialties (gas, rads, derm, ophtho, EM) do not get accepted by the completion of their first GMO tour. Those that I am familiar usually did one of two things: do their 4 yrs and get out or complete a second GMO tour, after which they usually got their desired specialty.

As for family, you can make it work, but you have to have an understanding spouse/significant other. I probably would have married my med school sweetheart if it wasn't for the military lifestyle, esp. frequent moves and deployments. Fortunately, my current fiancee is AD Navy and is very familiar with the lifestyle. I don't have any little BOHICAs, so I will let others comment on that aspect.

 

[155HE]

Thanks for the responses, everyone, especially 155HE for your exhausting detail! haha

Another question: has anyone run into issues of not matching into a residency of their desired specialty? This is a common question of my civilian friends, so I figured I'd put it to the board.

And how has active duty Navy life been on your families?

.

 

[haujun]

While I was an intern, I applied for Radiology but given the competitive nature of the specialty and the fact that the point system is biased in favor of GMOs, no interns at all were selected to go straight through. I think anaesthesia and urology. Dermatology and ophthalmology will almost never take someone straight through. Emergency medicine is a possibility, but also rare. Once you complete your GMO tour (or 2-3 GMO tours in the occasional case of derm and ophtho), you will likely be more than competitive for the specialty of your choice just because of the point system.

.

Per AF commander the military is adopting residency selection where committee will select few competitive candidates directly from pool of medical students into competitive residency such as Ortho etc without taking account as non-academic merits such as prior military service, GMO etc. I am sure this may be marketing tool to recruit civilian medical students into HPSP.

 

[Perrotfish]

Quick question: if I did a Transitional year or a FM intern year, after a GMO tour would I be able to apply to a Peds residency or would I need to do a Peds Intern year?

 

[backrow]

Quick question: if I did a Transitional year or a FM intern year, after a GMO tour would I be able to apply to a Peds residency or would I need to do a Peds Intern year?

Peds has some specific requirements for their internship, so you would at least need to repeat some of intern year. You could tailor a transitional year to be similar to a peds intern year and need to make up less. Not sure that an FM year would be as flexible in that regards.

 

[brucecanbeatyou]

Per AF commander the military is adopting residency selection where committee will select few competitive candidates directly from pool of medical students into competitive residency such as Ortho etc without taking account as non-academic merits such as prior military service, GMO etc. I am sure this may be marketing tool to recruit civilian medical students into HPSP.

I don't understand this statement - are you saying that the point system favoring GMO and prior service is going away?

 

[haujun]

I don't understand this statement - are you saying that the point system favoring GMO and prior service is going away?

No. Selection committee will for example designate x number of slots where they will select very competitive candidates directly from a medical school while they also select other candidates under traditional military point system.

 

[backrow]

No. Selection committee will for example designate x number of slots where they will select very competitive candidates directly from a medical school while they also select other candidates under traditional military point system.

Don't see this happening for the Navy for quite a few years other than for what we have seen in recent years: FP and psych. The Navy simply continues to have too many GMO needs to go to selecting people for straight through training in the vast majority of specialties.

 

[J-Rad]

Quick question: if I did a Transitional year or a FM intern year, after a GMO tour would I be able to apply to a Peds residency or would I need to do a Peds Intern year?

Peds has some specific requirements for their internship, so you would at least need to repeat some of intern year. You could tailor a transitional year to be similar to a peds intern year and need to make up less. Not sure that an FM year would be as flexible in that regards.

While backrow is right, you also have to account for time out in GMO-land. If you're one of the less common souls to be able to come back to residency after only a one-year gap you would be able to not repeat the intern year (though, usually, you will do your first few months as a "resiturn" with a 2nd/3rd year as the senior [proper] resident before being treated as a senior resident). Even if you did a peds internship, if you are gone too long, you will repeat intern year, regardless. I don't remember the magic number, but it could be as low as anything over one year out. If you want to do peds, I would highly recommend doing a peds internship. Despite getting face-time as a transitional with judicious use of electives, you will still be something of an outsider and, I believe, you will not be doing a peds continuity clinic which I think would be a great loss. Apply for peds internship first and transitional as a backup. Despite some year-to-year fluctuation in competitiveness, if you are a good MS who makes a good impression, your chances of getting a peds internship are good. If you are worried about training as related to GMO time, remember you are going to do adult ED, OB-GYN, and (IIRC) ortho rotations and a lot of GMO stuff is overgrown adolescent medicine (which you will also have).