Where do navy doctors usually end up getting stationed and deployed at?

[elkiter]

Sorry it has probably been answered many times but I can't find any decent threads on it(only one was like from 06). My hpsp recruiter knows jack and wouldn't stop selling me like I'm some idiot.

For stationing I guess it would just be any base the navy has. What are the most common ones? Do you have a choice? How long before you can/have to change. Any caveats? Like in an older thread I think you would have to be in the bigger bases for a year before being able to go to smaller bases or abroad.

In deployment I think the standard is 7 months? A normal 4 year experience would be being deployed once or twice. Where are the most common places to be deployed?

Thanks.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[orbitsurgMD]

Navy doctors are assigned to Navy hospitals and clinics on Navy bases near other Navy and Marine Corps activities: Navy surface ship and submarine bases and naval air stations and naval air facilities and at Marine Corps camps and air stations.

The East coast activities are in Kittery, ME, Newport, RI, Groton, CT, Annapolis, MD, Andrews AFB, MD, Walter Reed Hospital, Bethesda, MD, Patuxent River, MD, Portsmouth, VA, Norfolk, VA, Virginia Beach, VA, Cherry Point, NC, Camp Lejeune, NC, Parris Island, SC, Charleston, SC, Kings Bay, GA, Jacksonville, FL, NAS Key West, FL, NAS Pensacola, FL.

In the central U.S.: NTC Great Lakes in North Chicago, IL, Memphis, TN, NAS Meridian, MS, Gulfport, MS, Corpus Christi, TX, Kingsville, TX.

In the west: El Centro, CA, NAS Fallon, NV, San Diego, CA, MCAS Miramar, CA, Twentynine Palms, CA, Port Hueneme, CA, Lemoore, CA, Camp Pendleton, CA, Whidbey Island, WA, sub base Kitsap, WA, Adak, AK, Pearl Harbor, HI, Honolulu, HI (Marines).

OCONUS: Guam, Okinawa, Japan, Yokosuka, Japan, Chinhae, South Korea, Diego Garcia (British overseas territory), Manama, Bahrain, Souda Bay, Crete, (Greece), Naples, Italy, Sigonella, Sicily, (Italy), Rota, Spain, Lajes, Azores (Portugal), Keflavik, Iceland.

I am sure I forgot one or two.

Where you can go will depend on your qualifications and the particular need at a given location at the time.

Deployments are done in association with a unit--squadron, ship's crew, Marine regiment--that has a medical unit attached. The deployed doctor may work independently or in association with a shore facility, usually a clinic, established at whatever overseas location the unit is deployed. For example, if an aviation squadron was deployed from Jacksonville, FL to a forward operating base in Sigonella, Sicily, the flight surgeon might work some of the time at the Navy clinic on the air base. A GMO aboard a carrier might stay with the ship when in an overseas port.

 

[pawprint]

I think a good thing to know is that you will have basically no control over where you go. Assume that you will be stationed at the worst one of those duty stations doing the type of medicine you like the least. You want to be a pediatrician? Great, but you’ll probably spend 2 years as a GMO out in the middle of an undesirable duty station doing sports medicine and psychiatry. And when you finally get to be a pediatrician, you’ll spend your first 2 years as that in a remote location like Guantanamo Bay or Guam.

May sound tolerable now, but life changes and as you get older you’ll probably be less and less excited about being stuck doing things you don’t want to do in places you don’t want to be while your civilian colleagues are doing what they want, where they want.

 

[19pieces19]

I think a good thing to know is that you will have basically no control over where you go. Assume that you will be stationed at the worst one of those duty stations doing the type of medicine you like the least. You want to be a pediatrician? Great, but you’ll probably spend 2 years as a GMO out in the middle of an undesirable duty station doing sports medicine and psychiatry. And when you finally get to be a pediatrician, you’ll spend your first 2 years as that in a remote location like Guantanamo Bay or Guam.

May sound tolerable now, but life changes and as you get older you’ll probably be less and less excited about being stuck doing things you don’t want to do in places you don’t want to be while your civilian colleagues are doing what they want, where they want.

As a physician who didn’t go through HPSP and becomes a civilian attending without the financial aid, is there a way to enlist and request to be stationed at a certain location indefinitely (overseas) as part of your contract?

 

[backrow]

As a physician who didn’t go through HPSP and becomes a civilian attending without the financial aid, is there a way to enlist and request to be stationed at a certain location indefinitely (overseas) as part of your contract?

No.

You can always ask but there’s no way to guarantee this. And even if they did “guarantee” it there’s nothing you can do if they don’t once you’re in.

 

[orbitsurgMD]

As a physician who didn’t go through HPSP and becomes a civilian attending without the financial aid, is there a way to enlist and request to be stationed at a certain location indefinitely (overseas) as part of your contract?

You can be commissioned after residency provided you meet the physical and educational qualifications for active duty service and are a U.S. citizen. To be a physician, you would have to have a license. A full background check to verify your qualifications and security clearance would be done. You would have to go to some form of officer indoctrination course. That would be an initial assignment away from your home for several weeks to up to six months, depending on your recruitment program. Special duty like flight or dive would mean the special schools required for those. In the past, some accessions would be assigned a familiarization tour as a medical officer at an outpatient clinic somewhere for a year.

The standard detailing practice is to grant orders for one tour. Overseas as a permanent duty station assignment means three years. Extending is rare, even if that is your preference. Many overseas locations have waiting lists of interested candidates. Hardship posts, unaccompanied and usually in very remote areas, are typically limited to one year and may entail additional screening procedures. You may be significantly limited in what you may bring in the way of personal goods at some stations. In the past, a hardship tour candidate was frequently allowed to have priority in selecting a following duty station, coast of origin notwithstanding. (Unless there was a significant Navy requirement, East Coast assignments were followed by another East Coast assignment, and the same for the West Coast; the Navy avoided the costs of cross-country relocations.) Going overseas and "homesteading" there--the practice of taking successive orders in the same geographic location--was not allowed.