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I tried to write this a couple of days ago and couldn't get it to come out right. Trying again:
So something that has really surprised me since starting working in a Navy hospital is how completely divorced we are from the training, management, and evaluation of our departments' enlisted personel. It seems like at major MTFs corpsmen function almost entirely independently of physicians. They report to more senior corpsmen, and to a lesser extent to the nursing staff. To me, other than a few sernior petty officers who run clinics/floors, I barely even know them. I mean, I know their names and a little bit about their personalities, but they switch in and out of jobs every day and don't seem to need me to do anything for them so I end up kind of distant. Unlike the nurses and medical students I don't even really know how I'm supposed to relate to them. If I teach them does that come off as considerate (like medical students) or out of line (like nurses). How far out of my way should I go to recognize good behavior? Other than telling their LPO, is there even a way to recognize good behavior? For lack of a better idea I usually just thank them politey for the charts they hand me and go about my business
Now I wouldn't mind this (at least not enough to say anything), except that everything that I've been told is that when I'm operationational corpsmen are going to be my main support staff, and I am not going to have any senior physicians readily available to show me the ropes of how to be an officer at that time. As it stands I have no idea what I would do for my corpsmen in terms of promoting their careers or training them, and I honestly don't really understand what they can do for me (what the limits of their training are). I hate the idea of screwing someone's career because I don't understand my role as an officer, or of harming a patient because I don't understand what my corpsmen aren't trained to do. For that matter I don't think they understand what I am and am not trained to do very well either. When I actually talk with them about anything medical I get the feeling they're learning about medicine via a game of telephone: Doctor to nurse to LPO to them. A large percentage of the corspmen I meet plan to go into nursing after they leave the Navy, I sometimes wonder if they choose that over medcine mainly because that's what we familiarize them with. If so that seems like a failure on our part.
So my question: has a different system ever been tried at an MTF? Have corspemen ever been attached to physicians, rather than floors, so that they can gain experience with us, and we can learn how to be officers as well as physicians? Has anyone ever suggested this? Just wondering.
So something that has really surprised me since starting working in a Navy hospital is how completely divorced we are from the training, management, and evaluation of our departments' enlisted personel. It seems like at major MTFs corpsmen function almost entirely independently of physicians. They report to more senior corpsmen, and to a lesser extent to the nursing staff. To me, other than a few sernior petty officers who run clinics/floors, I barely even know them. I mean, I know their names and a little bit about their personalities, but they switch in and out of jobs every day and don't seem to need me to do anything for them so I end up kind of distant. Unlike the nurses and medical students I don't even really know how I'm supposed to relate to them. If I teach them does that come off as considerate (like medical students) or out of line (like nurses). How far out of my way should I go to recognize good behavior? Other than telling their LPO, is there even a way to recognize good behavior? For lack of a better idea I usually just thank them politey for the charts they hand me and go about my business
Now I wouldn't mind this (at least not enough to say anything), except that everything that I've been told is that when I'm operationational corpsmen are going to be my main support staff, and I am not going to have any senior physicians readily available to show me the ropes of how to be an officer at that time. As it stands I have no idea what I would do for my corpsmen in terms of promoting their careers or training them, and I honestly don't really understand what they can do for me (what the limits of their training are). I hate the idea of screwing someone's career because I don't understand my role as an officer, or of harming a patient because I don't understand what my corpsmen aren't trained to do. For that matter I don't think they understand what I am and am not trained to do very well either. When I actually talk with them about anything medical I get the feeling they're learning about medicine via a game of telephone: Doctor to nurse to LPO to them. A large percentage of the corspmen I meet plan to go into nursing after they leave the Navy, I sometimes wonder if they choose that over medcine mainly because that's what we familiarize them with. If so that seems like a failure on our part.
So my question: has a different system ever been tried at an MTF? Have corspemen ever been attached to physicians, rather than floors, so that they can gain experience with us, and we can learn how to be officers as well as physicians? Has anyone ever suggested this? Just wondering.
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