Navy

[8744]

I will be starting a residency in July (Family Medicine at Duke) and have always been interested in being a Navy Physician. Is there a career path for a civilian resident to get commisioned in tghe Navy?

If so, are there any incentives and is there age age waiver?

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[tran1123]

I will be starting a residency in July (Family Medicine at Duke) and have always been interested in being a Navy Physician. Is there a career path for a civilian resident to get commisioned in tghe Navy?

If so, are there any incentives and is there age age waiver?

Check out the Financial Assistance Program (FAP). This site should be a start.

http://www.navy.com/healthcare/physicians

 

[ryann04]

Pandabear

I have applied and will start the FAP program in July. I am going into Family Medicine, TOO. The FAP program is currently a yeary lump sum of $26 thousand and change plus a monthly stipend of ~1300 dollars. Commitment is one year for each year you receive the money plus one additional year. So it would be 4 years total for Family Medicine.
I just went through multiple interviews with different CAPT's and they are looking for docs who will receive good OB training. This would include perfroming your own C-sections if needed. Also, they pretty much told me that any fellowship, immediately following residency would almost never happen unless the need was extremely great.
If your interested, I would contact a recruiter immediately because there are not many FAP FM spots.

 

[8744]

What is a typical deployment schedule for a family medicine physician? Are they assigned to Naval hospitals, as a rule, or are they deployed aboard ships?

I think the FAP program is a pretty good deal but there is naturally no such thing as a free lunch. Other than the lower pay as a Navy doctor versus his civilian counterpart what are some of the drawbacks of the program?

 

[helo doc]

As a current Navy flight surgeon, not FP trained, I would recommend picking up the phone and talking to some current Navy FP docs. Google for "Naval Hospital ______", go the directory on the website and call. They would probably be more than happy to give it to you straight.

My outsider's perspective concerning Navy FP is simply "beware". The Navy is asking/telling it's FP's to do more with less, deploy more and more, be available all the time and allow patients open-access care (i.e. if they want to see a doctor right now, they'll see one - no matter the CCx). Don't think that coming into the Navy will spare you the pains associated with working for an HMO, it won't. In general the Navy is going through what civilian medicine suffered through in the last decade or so regarding "cost optimization strategies" - ie work more for less and beg a non-provider for permission to refer patients for specialty care.

My advice would be, if you can survive residency without the FAP dollars, then do so. You can always get hired as a civilian contractor to serve in a Navy hospital or clinic without the distinct possibility of vacationing 6 months on a ship or in the desert. The Navy is currently in the process of trimming a whole boatload (pun intended) of FP and peds docs off the active duty roles and converting them to civilian contractor jobs as a result of PBD-712 (program budget decision).

I don't hope to scare anyone off or sound like ex-MMD, but be realistic about the future. I've been in the Navy 14 years (3 yrs as a doc) and will stick it out because I enjoy it for the intangibles. Again, ask those in Navy FP.

 

[Teufelhunden]

helo doc

Your above post seems riddled w/ negative comments about Navy medicine, then you finish with "I will stick it out because I enjoy it for the intangibles." I was hoping you would expound on that. There are plenty of Navy docs bashing Navy medicine on SDN (and I respect their opinions - heck, I don't even warrant an opinion yet as I haven't served a single day as a Navy doc). I'd like to hear from the ppl who are planning on staying in. My burning question is, if it's so bad, why does anyone make a career out of it? How does the Navy get anyone to put in 20 years?

BTW, is psych on the chopping block, too? (Along w/ peds and FP)?

 

[militarymd]

helo doc

Your above post seems riddled w/ negative comments about Navy medicine, then you finish with "I will stick it out because I enjoy it for the intangibles." I was hoping you would expound on that. There are plenty of Navy docs bashing Navy medicine on SDN (and I respect their opinions - heck, I don't even warrant an opinion yet as I haven't served a single day as a Navy doc). I'd like to hear from the ppl who are planning on staying in. My burning question is, if it's so bad, why does anyone make a career out of it? How does the Navy get anyone to put in 20 years?

BTW, is psych on the chopping block, too? (Along w/ peds and FP)?

The Navy ISN'T getting its docs to stay the 20 years. If you look at the manning numbers, you will find that the Medical Corps is overmanned, but it is overmanned in specialties where the military pay structure allows low paying specialties relatively high pay as compared to their civilian counterparts.

All specialties that do well in the civilian world are jumping ship (no pun intended) left and right. The Navy can't keep enough surgeons and other medical subspecialists in....Look at the CSRB from 2 years ago....attempt at keeping docs in....I was offered $50,000 to stay one more year. Needless to say I didn't take it....

 

[Aphelion]

To all the military docs....

What is the deployment schedule looking like for Docs.

Thinking of applying for the HPSP and I have 9 years of creditable service as enlisted. Will try for Gas specialty, which pretty much limits me to San Diego I think.

Also, from my previous life I have heard that OIS is not as rigorous as OCS.

Thanks,

 

[8744]

Y'all know I was a Marine Infantryman for close to eight years so I have a reasonable amount of skepticism about rosy promises made by recruiters.

I am happy to say that the physicians recruiter I talked to was very up front about deployments and ship-board service, two of the big reservations I have about military medicine. I don't think I 'd want to end up on Okinawa (been there, done that as a Marine) or Guam on a three-year tour even if it were an accompanied tour.

I looked at the FP Detailers web site and there are an awful lot of opening Guam, Okinawa, and on various ships.

 

[helo doc]

helo doc

Your above post seems riddled w/ negative comments about Navy medicine, then you finish with "I will stick it out because I enjoy it for the intangibles." I was hoping you would expound on that. There are plenty of Navy docs bashing Navy medicine on SDN (and I respect their opinions - heck, I don't even warrant an opinion yet as I haven't served a single day as a Navy doc). I'd like to hear from the ppl who are planning on staying in. My burning question is, if it's so bad, why does anyone make a career out of it? How does the Navy get anyone to put in 20 years?

BTW, is psych on the chopping block, too? (Along w/ peds and FP)?

The truth is that I am not bashing Navy medicine. I am very proud to serve and actually think that when the day is all done, we actually do a pretty good job given the constraints placed on us and the environments in which we work. However, I do like to provide the cold, hard facts. Times are a changin' in Navy Medicine. Painfully so. Ask anyone in Navy medicine and they will tell you. Back in the good ol' days (nickel soda, 25cent movies, walk uphill both ways to school) being in military medicine had some definite perks - less arduous work days at the clinic/hospital, freedom to practice according to the patient's best needs and not get grilled by the referral/authorizations Gestapo, an unwritten "guarantee" that if you stayed in long enough you'd make O-6, etc - and these perks made up for the fact that, generally speaking, you were underpaid with respect to your civilian counterparts and you could be deployed with very little notice. Fast forward to 2005 - take away the perks and keep the negative aspects and voila (or is it viola - who give a FF) - it ain't what it used to be.

Regarding the intangibles I spoke of earlier. These include, but aren't limited to, the following: helping those who would readily lay down their lives for our great country, pride in service, I actually like moving around every 2 to 4 years - really, great peers (common values often shared), the chicks dig it (oops, my wife won't appreciate that one), opportunities to do some really cool - insert slang term for fecal matter.

FYI, to let the cat out of the bag, before going to med school I was an officer recruiter in the Navy (no applause, just throw tomatoes). It was my policy then to tell the straight story - all the facts, good and bad. Needless to say I wasn't setting any recruiting world records, but then again, I could get up in the a.m. and actually look at myself in the mirror. I'm just doing the same here.

With regards to Navy pscyh, the Navy plans to convert 20 military slots to civilian over the next 5 years, with the lion's share coming in this fiscal year. This is compared to the FP (48) and peds (56) who took it in the ol' crap hamper. While 20 is not that many, I don't what the denominator is to get an actual gauge for how bad the hemorrhaging is.