Where did you learn medical profiling? (Army NG)

[StemiAlert]

Hi folks,

For those of you who do PHAs on a regular basis, where did you learn about medical profiling and medical standards of fitness? Did you just study 40-501 to become familiar with the standards? ATRRS at one point had a self study "Medical Profiling" course but I think it's been discontinued.

Background: I'm a direct commission ARNG officer and haven't been to BOLC yet.

Thanks!

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[d2305]

I never did learn it, but signed lots of PHAs. I'm retired navy and we just have light duty. The whole temporary and permanent profiles are foreign to me. I think permanent profiles are approved at Medcom. I saw lots of reserved personnel, and was amazed at how many were excused from running PFT. I think National Guard is even worse as a rule. They all have LBP and knee pain.

 

[Shikima]

I never did learn it, but signed lots of PHAs. I'm retired navy and we just have light duty. The whole temporary and permanent profiles are foreign to me. I think permanent profiles are approved at Medcom. I saw lots of reserved personnel, and was amazed at how many were excused from running PFT. I think National Guard is even worse as a rule. They all have LBP and knee pain.

I wonder if the milmed would have any impact to commands by developing specific training for generalized complaints of those whom are on profiles. Example, LBP and Knee pain, common occurrences, but PT has a plethora of isometric exercises to increase strength and mobility to minimize pain. Why not create a culture of those who are having these problems that from 8a-9a, group exercise to eliminate this discomfort and back up to full training strength?

 

[d2305]

10-15% that don't want to do the PFT, and will never get better.

 

[DeadCactus]

There's a little online module that is somewhat helpful but really a good mentor is the answer. As a general guide: 1 is healthy, 2 is something you want to know/track but doesn't affect their ability to function, 3 affects their ability to function in the military and if permanent they should be somewhere in the process of being boarded to decide if they will be retained in the military, and 4 is usually incompatible with military service but retained by a board for whatever reason.

The actual limitations and duration of the profile will come down to your medical discretion often based on input from a civilian physician. The more specific you can make their limitations and training abilities, the better.

The above poster is correct, the RC/NG generally have more profiles. My speculation as to why: One, it's not a closed medical system and you're not their PCP so you have soldiers seeing civilian providers who are driven by patient satisfaction when they right limitations and work excuses and then you have to decide if you want to override the specialist/PCP on a patient you don't have full-time continuity with and with limited access to their clinical documentation. Second, RC/NG don't have the same access to care and don't have dedicated exercise time as part of their work hours so they tend to be less healthy and less able to get issues addressed before they balloon. That's my impression anyway, but I have no AD experience so maybe I'm off track.