I am a pre-med student trying to decide whether or not to go into military medicine. Ive been reading the threads and I seem to see a lot more negatives about the field than positives. The opportunity to have medical school paid for and serving seems like a bonus to me but at the same time I am trying to decide whether having little say-so in choosing my residency or fellowship is a huge deal for me. For those enlisted now what branch of the military are you in and would you practice medicine through the military again and why or why not??
Would you do it again??
- Thread starter Natatiap
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Search my threads from dec 2003 forward
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Search my threads and posts also. But the answer is: NO!!!
You are just the person that our messages are directed toward. We are trying to do for you what no one did for us and that is to accurately forewarn you of what lies ahead for you if you choose this particular path in life. Is the money tempting? Yes, but then so are alot of other things in life also that look good but are in reality bad for you. I don't want to sound parental, but we are more experienced and I hope wiser as the result, we have been there, trust us, we do know what we are talking about. We are not simply just a bunch of old, disgruntled, ex-military docs with chips on our shoulders. Believe it or not, we do care about military medicine because we care about those who are on the front lines defending our country and we know that they deserve a much better healthcare system than what they have, and you deserve better also.
But, you have your own freedom to choose, and if this is what you choose to do, you cannot say later that you were not forewarned, because we are warning you now do not do this or most likely you will one day regret it.
You are just the person that our messages are directed toward. We are trying to do for you what no one did for us and that is to accurately forewarn you of what lies ahead for you if you choose this particular path in life. Is the money tempting? Yes, but then so are alot of other things in life also that look good but are in reality bad for you. I don't want to sound parental, but we are more experienced and I hope wiser as the result, we have been there, trust us, we do know what we are talking about. We are not simply just a bunch of old, disgruntled, ex-military docs with chips on our shoulders. Believe it or not, we do care about military medicine because we care about those who are on the front lines defending our country and we know that they deserve a much better healthcare system than what they have, and you deserve better also.
But, you have your own freedom to choose, and if this is what you choose to do, you cannot say later that you were not forewarned, because we are warning you now do not do this or most likely you will one day regret it.
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DITTO DITTO DITTO!!!!!1
With this information in hand, absolutely 100% NO. Would have found another way, been starving poor while in med school, instead of driving around a used car, and living in an old house, but while you're in med school, besides books, you need time to learn, and that's it.
Loosing your freedom is something once you've lost, you cannot get back.
Highly recommend against it.
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You may know what price the military will give you; what you DO NOT know is what price you will give them. If the following is acceptable to you, go for it!
1) they decide what field you go into (GMO, Flight surg etc..)
2) they decide where you live
3) they decide who your support staff is, if you have any.
4) they decide when and if you get vacation days
5) they decide whether you will have enough admin support to have a chart available, labs in the chart, etc.
6) they decide where people are referred (TRICARE), and it is the WORST HMO west of the Atlantic Ocean.
7) they decide if they will give you your physician bonus pay.
8) they decide if your family will go with you overseas.
9) they decide if PAs will be under your liscense unsupervised
10) and in reality, they decide whether you will make it a career (ie...3 months into your first base tour you will be counting down the days till your DOS (date of separation)). The decisions they make will leave any physician committed to a high quality healthcare system NO OTHER CHOICE but to leave
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In one simple word: NO! It really sucks to see your medical school buddies halfway through residency while you are stuck with your "vast" intern expertise doing military physicals/paperwork in a GMO/FS/DMO tour. I'm paying my HPSP commitment time in the same way a convict pays his jail time. The NAVY is only successful in providing a huge amount of uncertainty in my life: social, relationships, medical education, location, etc. This uncertainty is the root of all bitterness and regret. Be smart, don't sign the dotted line. "Se listo, no firmes el contarto".
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Imagine a best friend stepping in from marrying a huge bitch bride at the last minute. One that would take your house, half of your income, give you herpes, and make your life miserable for the next 10-15 years. The above doctors talking you out of signing up would, in effect do the equivalent of that for you. There is no way to understand the pain and hell you get yourself into until you are signed up and it is too late to back up. Take out the scary loans and you will never regret it. Let our mistake be your gain. My goal in medicine has always been to learn from others mistakes so I don't make the same ones they did. You are about to be blind sided with a deal that looks one way in your favor but is really a devil's deal that you will regret.
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Too funny...But yeah I agree I would not do it all over again. I waould have been practicing 2 years ago living how I want where I want. As it stands Im a PGY2 who graduated med school in 2001
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Here's the best listing that I've been able to compile of people who would know and how they feel:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=3887100&postcount=153
Good luck!
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if you really want to do the military thing, don't do HPSP. look into FAP.
get your education, get your residency +/- fellowship, and if you still have an insatiable desire to join do the loan repayment. it's the only way you can control the education *you* want. *especially* when dealing with fellowships.
--your friendly neighborhood counting down the time to the MEDDAC caveman
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You forgot me. I posted to your thread. Um, and may I add, there
are a few more Air Force anesthesiologists here who are as mad
as I.
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R
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Glad to see that you have made a wise and correct decision.
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From your name I assume you are a woman - here is my advice to women. If you already have children and are willing to leave them for up to a year at a time to get bombed and dirty and overworked and underpaid and underappreciated. Then by all means do it. We need good Docs to help change the system.
If you do not have kids or a familly do not sign up now. You can always sign up after med school if you still want to Serve you country.
IF you dont care what specialty you want to do then the military can be good, but you do not get to choose your specialty based on what you want - it is based on the needs of the service you are in at the year you apply. My year they needed surgeons, Psych, Radiology, Primary care, but if you wanted to be more subspecialized like OB/ Plastics, neurosurge, urology, ENT, Optho, Derm, you were screwed...
I have travelled many places and met many good people and seen things I'll never have the chance to not in the miilitary, but Overall I would not join again and the main reason is that they do not take care of me, or my family (or the troops) to my standards. As a MD I have no rank or power to change anything because the hospitals are ran by non clinicians only interested in making rank, not making hard decisions that will bring about better changes.
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Hey, can I use this quote in my book, can I, huh? If I ever get around to finishing it, that is...
7by11, in her usual pithy way, expressed the collective feelings of many of us current and ex-military attending physicians; allow me to parse her Holy Words with the exegetical care they so richly deserve:
1) "They don't take care of me..." I had hypertension for years (looking back), and no one said anything. It took readings of 220s/120s (during a period of severe psychic stress + prednisone tx for poison ivy) for them to sit up and finally take notice.
2) "...Or my family...": Read my thread on EFMP. (repeat after me) If the military wanted you to have a family, they would have issued it to you (O.K., you can stop repeating now). I was expected to take O.R. call the day my son was born at 33 weeks EGA and placed into the NICU, lit up for hyperbili, and suffering from As and Bs. It took a frankly humiliating appeal to my boss's boss's boss to get a few days of leave approved so I could be with him and my wife, rather than a few floors below, committing anesthesia on people while 100% distracted with worry over my son's fate.
3)"...or the troops...": How many troops have had their necks slashed or suffered brain damage in the O.R. or PACU due to independent (mal)practice of non-physicians masquerading as doctors? More than anyone knows...or ever will know, thanks to the military's unique internal "Quality Assurance" mechanism, which ga-ron-tees bad sentinel events caused by systemic problems will be swept under the official rug of confidential MII reports, etc.
4) (drum roll) "TO MY STANDARDS": This is the crux of the issue. Any non-clinical, flight-bag-wearing, back-slappin', ex-Aggie fine Merkin can sit around on his @ss and imagine that he's such a gol-dern fine docter (sic) for Merka. Those of us who actually touch patients, and who know how to do our jobs well, know when standards of care are being breached. Whether due to inadequate support staff, inadequate infrastructure, inadequate funding, or just Colonel Incompetence (not good enough to be General Incompetence), standards of MEDICAL care of patients are CONSTANTLY being shoved out the airlock in the military, in favor of "close enough fer gummint work", "what the Commander wants", or "what looks good on my OPR". This is because...
5) "As an M.D., I have no rank or power": OMG, the Objective Medical Group, which made nurses>>physical therapists>pharmacists>doctors in the red in tooth and claw battle for shoulder birds, should be called "OMFG, we just killed another patient dead...luckily, they were active duty, so they (and their families) can't sue us blind..."
6) And, finally, verily, verily, I say unto thee, the Holy Words of "She Who Hits the Nail on the Head": "the hospitals are (run) by non clinicians only interested in making rank, not making hard decisions that will bring about better changes". It didn't use to be this way. I remember when Gods among clinical physicians walked the halls of WRAMC, NHB, and Andrews; O-6 clinicians who saw patients, took call, ran clinics, taught residents, and, like Col. (Dr.) P-T at Andrews, could roar like a lion at morning rounds, "If I'm in the ER with an MI, you can take you're thrombolytics and shove them up your @ss...give me F****ing morphine first, then oxygen, aspirin and NTG, and then..." Nowadays, such rough and tumble instruction of residents and medical students, which has stuck with me for 16 years, would be considered...inappropriate. (Cf.: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=4092372&postcount=8 )Tsk Tsk. Much better to send out e-mail about contributing to CFC, AFA, and the Assistant Nosepickers' Brigade Car Wash to raise money to buy sutures for the hospital.
And allllll Her People said...Praise Exegesis!
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R
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It helps to have a female deity when you are ordered to bathe your kids:
"I hear and obey, O Mighty One..."
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You may use it and my Quality --- in your book
as long as my QA gets top billiting, I tried to put that on my OPR, but they werent amused...- Joined
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Yes, I remember being on call after my son was born at wilford hall in nov 95. My wife had to call someone she didn't know to give our baby andher a ride home because I couldn't be let out of duty to bring them... Is that necessary? No but that is just one example of many the doctors on this board can cite as to how the military treats its members. And I am a member treater!
also, one of the guys who started residency was kicked out of the Gen surgery residency because he thought he was drinking on the job. The AF owns you so they could do what they want with you. Instead of mandating a rehab stint... they make him a flight surgeon or GMO where he can potentially do some real damage to patients with no supervision and where nobody can watch or help him in a solo position in another state. He blew his brains out. The residency coordinator just looked on it as "what a bad apple.... we dodged a bullet with that one". In my six years at WHMC at least 3 residents killed themselves.
also, one of the guys who started residency was kicked out of the Gen surgery residency because he thought he was drinking on the job. The AF owns you so they could do what they want with you. Instead of mandating a rehab stint... they make him a flight surgeon or GMO where he can potentially do some real damage to patients with no supervision and where nobody can watch or help him in a solo position in another state. He blew his brains out. The residency coordinator just looked on it as "what a bad apple.... we dodged a bullet with that one". In my six years at WHMC at least 3 residents killed themselves.
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Just a question, what service did you serve with? I am asking because most people I know don't go for Army HPSP because they think of the USAF supposedly giving them the ability to take a civilian residency and the Navy allowing them to fly even though they delay residency for GMO years. I was just wondering because I've noticed many of the people angry coming from the supposedly better services. I mean it doesn't matter anyway after all because HPSP is HPSP but not all the services apply the same way. You know as always I respect all comments and gripes but I am just curious to know.
Your friend, "Sparky"
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Air Force, just like medical corpse, former military, mitchconnie, flitesurgn. You do not have to draw parallels, I think the stuff we experienced can happen DoD wide, and is 100% not an AF specific thing. All the things you mentioned as to reasons people give you, are complete crap. The AF is not any more likely to give you a civilian residency, and the Navy will only send yo to a 6 week play school where they give you limited flight training, but certainly not enough to get a pilot license. So you need to let these naive people know the truth. Right now the state of military medicine is one not condusive to a career in medicine.
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You may use it and my Quality --- in your
book
Naturally, or, as the French say, au naturel...
You have to kind of slip it in the backdoor, as it were.
See my PM for suggestives...er, suggestions.
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R
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i'm not quite as jaded as many folks on this board. then again, i'm much earlier in the process and less experienced, so take my advice with the source in mind.
my situation is that i decided to join before i decided to be a physician, so when it came time to go to medical school, i couldn't really bitch about the army commitment because it's something that would have happened with or without medicine. so when i ask myself if i'd do it again, what i'm really asking is would i join the (in my case) army?
and that's the question, i think, you really need to ask yourself: would i join if i weren't going to be a doctor? if your answer is 'no', then the decision is easy - don't do it. if the answer is 'yes' or 'maybe', then make sure you have adequately educated yourself on what military service means. if the answer is still 'yes', then you're probably a good candidate to join, but who knows?
my situation is that i decided to join before i decided to be a physician, so when it came time to go to medical school, i couldn't really bitch about the army commitment because it's something that would have happened with or without medicine. so when i ask myself if i'd do it again, what i'm really asking is would i join the (in my case) army?
and that's the question, i think, you really need to ask yourself: would i join if i weren't going to be a doctor? if your answer is 'no', then the decision is easy - don't do it. if the answer is 'yes' or 'maybe', then make sure you have adequately educated yourself on what military service means. if the answer is still 'yes', then you're probably a good candidate to join, but who knows?
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I imagine the reaction was similar to my commander's response when she saw that my EPR included such bullets as (we made up a joke one and it was "accidentally" submitted in place of my actual EPR):
-"Inventor of the 'Home Depot DIY CCATT mission' " (after wrangling an ER nurse and an FP resident to go along on a medical transfer to Bethesda when they tried to just send me along with a civilian flight medic ("It's only a vent patient!" "Yeah, on pressors and other meds I'm not allowed to manage legally")
-"Discovered a way to accrue frequent flyer miles while traveling on "Space-A" flights"
-"Designed and sold a new neon colored patch for the Comm squadron after 50+ of their airmen and 3 of their officers were busted for dealing Ecstasy" (You'd need a mild hallucinogen too if you listen to radio static for a living)
-"Utilized CCATT flights as a way to transport himself from one random sexcapade to another" (not true, but somehow my supervisor was convinced of this)
-"Successfully managed to not put on any manner of uniform for over three months during a competition with one of the pulmonologists"
-"Managed to fail 5 successive bike fitness tests while training for a marathon (which I successfully ran)"
-Etc, etc ad nauseum
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In my surgical subspecialty (since anyone's OPR meant absolutely nothing toward being promoted, salary, kudos, or being fired) we used to fax our bullets to each other at other bases. I used the guy from Nellis one year and he used mine. I used the guy from Eglin the next year. If you spent over 90 min putting together an OPR you need to admit you are a loser... fill in the white space with a bunch of zoomie boy phrases and it will go through
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My opinion: OPRs are just another example of USAF (military) nonsense. They mean nothing because everybody is either labled as the next best thing to peanutbutter and jelly OR they are less than par and recommended for separation. I have also seen people have to do, and redo, and redo and redo OPRs. What a waste!
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Well, if it were still the mid-1980's, the answer would be yes. My back-up plan had I not gotten accepted to medical school was to mark time in some kind of grad program and re-apply for a couple of years. If I still had no acceptance after that, I figured that I wasn't destined for greatness that way, and my plan was to apply for a Navy officer program. I wanted to serve anyway. My dad was a Navy vet, my uncles were career Air Force, and one of my dad's hunting buddies was a WWII vet. My younger brother is a VMI alum. (And is still Army reserve after doing a year in Baghdad) I grew up reading Samuel Eliot Morison and watching "Victory at Sea" on PBS.
I signed up for the HPSP because I wanted to serve, not for the money, and my only branch choice was Navy.
It was a good choice for me at the time because I needed a big change of venue after med school and internship. I did not really know what kind of residency I wanted after souring on primary care, and being a flight surgeon was about as far away as I could get from hospital-based medicine as I could get without actually quitting the field altogether. I always though airplanes were cool, and had I 20/17 vision and not been red-green deficient, would have tried to be an aviator instead of a physician.
It all worked out for me in the end, and I have a lot of interesting memories and stories to bore my grandkids with. My family and I attended to Cleveland Airshow this past weekend, and after chatting with a few young buck aviators standing near their planes, my wife commented on how she sometimes misses the "old days" and the friends we met in my old squadron.
BUT BUT BUT, knowing what I know now, and how things seem to be in the military now, and living now rather than 20 years ago, I would have to give an equivocal "NO". The military (well, the Navy, anyway) has not adapted to the challenges of the post-Cold War era very well, let alone the prospect of the "Long War" against Islamic barbarism. Much bureaucratic crapola has not changed one iota in 20 years, and much of that crapola had not changed one iota since the Viet Nam era even back then. This stagnation is mirrored and actually worsened in BUMED, as medical knowledge and technology has advanced comparatively more rapidly than many other areas in the past 20 years. BUMED is trying to staff the Medical Corps in a manner more reminiscent of the 1950's, than even the 1990's.
If you are keenly interested in the military, and have a burning desire to serve, my advice is to think it over well, and be damned sure of what you are getting into.
If you are only interested in the money, run far far away, and do not look back. That way lies only madness and despair.
ExNavyRad
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Not drawing parallels but even though HPSP is exactly the same in each service, the way it is applied is different. Especially when it comes to residencies. In the real world, there is much Army bashing because of the war but here I see so many angry physicians from AF and Navy.
I guess the reason I asked is because I've seen someone pro-AF ( a resident) make a website that stated that the AF gives the option of choosing a civilian residency and the Army does not. The Army says you must particpate in the Military match first and then if you don't match, you participate in the civilian match. If you DO match for an Army residency that you chose then you MUST withdraw from the civilian match. I guess I am so surprised because I go to table days at medical schools sometimes and no one walks up to the Army table but the Air Force table is usually crowded and the Navy sells the Physicians flying deal ( as if you canot be an aerospace physician in the Army). So when I come here and there are so many angry Air Force Docs and Navy docs, a few Army ones too, but it is overwhelmingly AF and Navy, I am am confused. I never knew that AF medicine was predominately clinic based and there is a problem with understaffing or skill atrophy. I think many people join the AF and Navy because the perception is that if you go Army you will go play in the Sandbox eventually (there may some truth to that). So it is a toss up, go AF with little chance of going to the Sandbox but your skills go to Hell or you are one Doc to hundreds of patients or go Navy and go GMO, delaying your residency for years while your peers go ahead of you or...Go Army and go to your residencyand use your but you will probably go to war. All cases of bad experiences are not true for every single person that joins in every specialty are they? (these are serious questions)
Many students who want the money for school but they want no committment. Are there any programs out there that will let one go to school for free and then walk away without any payback? They want to negotiate with the services and hate it because they have to serve but you cannot negotiate with the med school, they want their money and every year med school becomes more and more expensive.
I agree that the truth is skewed at times, afterall it is a business. But the status of military medicine wasn't always bad. When did it go wrong? Compared to other wars our servicemen and women have a higher survival rate so something must be right, right?
I am willing to acknowledge that there are serious problems with the military medical system but is there anyone who wants to admit that there is anything that goes right?
I am glad I feel that I can ask you things and not get attacked because in the end I TOO want to know.
Sparky
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The problem is that given the FUBAR'ed approach currently used to managing military health care (ass backwards position in regards to the roles of MD/DO's, RN's, PT's, CRNA's; the lack of proper support personnel, etc, etc, etc ad nauseum) you are not going to maintain personnel and that is a much more effective way to establish an effective medical operation- not attempting to draw in new blood every year. Treat people as human beings
The primary problem is that the military (all the branches) has failed to realize, or more likely failed to take action regarding, the fact that the approach to leadership and organization that works in a line combat unit, a supply unit, or an aviation unit, will not work when you are dealing with medical professionals. You aren't dealing with people who tend to be towards the bottom of the food chain when it comes to intellect and ambition, like you would encounter in, say, an infantry unit. Not only are you dealing with some of the smartest, most ambitious and most egotistical people you will find in any field; but you are also dealing with people who are able to garner large sums of money in the civilian world. If the military truly wants to do away with their woes in regards to the medical corps, basically you are talking a paradigm shift the likes of which I don't see happening any time soon- doctors in charge, nurses in their place, everyone treated with due respect based upon their education and not an arbitrary rank system, and pay equal or exceeding civilian opportunities, etc.
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You talk of food chain but there is a C student running the country. LOL Clearly being the smartest doesn't mean everything. Ambition exists regardless of what you do for a living or despite what you went to school for. I am sure you've met physicians in your experience that do not fit that all inclusive mold or that you felt shouldn't be physicians, but they were. There are many people that go to medical school because Mom and Dad are docs and they HAVE to go or Culturally their opinion means nothing when it comes to going to school.As a matter of fact I KNOW you've probably met absolutely brilliant people who have absolutely no common sense whatsoever. You've met some very unmotivated physicians, nurses etc... so having an ego does not equate to ambition either.
Most of the richest most powerful people in the world are not doctors nor are they even the smartest people in the world, but they had ambition. You can find alot of ambition in the infantry. Dwight David Eisenhower went from being an infantry officer ( could be mistaken on that) to General of the Army, to Supreme Allied Commander, to President. Sometimes the most ambitious people in the world do jobs that no one could see themselves doing, thus they become successes by going the extra mile. As for doctors being in charge, the Surgeon Generals of all the services are all doctors, they are the ones who go to Congress and write the rules for the governing of medicine in the military, not nurses, not PAs, docs. But your point is well taken, and I DO appreciate your response.
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1) A major problem with USAF Primary care is "too many patients". In 1999, the surgeon General ramped up the number of patients per provider from 700 up to 1500. He also gave the same number to indiv PAs operating under the physicians liscense. You then add reservist call-ups, deployments, civilian contractors who quit and othr patients you are left to cover for and I found myself as the doctor for over 3000 patients (and this included the Internal Med patients after the USAF closed the IM clinics).
mix this with lack of support staff, multiple collateral duties and piles of "red-tape" paperwork and suddenly you find yourself doing 300+ hours month just to stay afloat (and thats doing a half-ass job, not an excellent one).
Lastly, mix that with an admin staff that only wants the "numbers" to look good and could care less what is safe, reasonable or standard of care.
Primary care has similar problems in the civilian world and medicine is way more complex and demanding in some ways because of so many more meds, options, tests, insurance papaerwork, recommendations for screening, the obesity/diabetes epidemic...etc.....
Primary care anywhere is a challenge to do well. In the USAF primary care is a war zone with most of the casualties due to "friendly fire."
I'm willing to bust my butt for my patients, but not for an organization committed to reckelessness, metrics, lip service, and micromanaging, ...and all under the liscenses of physicians it could care less about.
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Damn straight. And he was probably only a C student because Daddy had money.
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. I never knew that AF medicine was predominately clinic based and there is a problem with understaffing or skill atrophy. I think many people join the AF and Navy because the perception is that if you go Army you will go play in the Sandbox eventually (there may some truth to that). So it is a toss up, go AF with little chance of going to the Sandbox but your skills go to Hell or you are one Doc to hundreds of patients or go Navy and go GMO, delaying your residency for years while your peers go ahead of you or...Go Army and go to your residencyand use your but you will probably go to war. All cases of bad experiences are not true for every single person that joins in every specialty are they? (these are serious questions)
I think you need to do some serious research if your perception is that as an AF physician you have little chance of going to the "Sandbox". You have a very good chance of going... you may have little chance of being busy or doing something meaningful there... but you have a good chance of "filling the billet and checking the box"
I think you need to do some serious research if your perception is that as an AF physician you have little chance of going to the "Sandbox". You have a very good chance of going... you may have little chance of being busy or doing something meaningful there... but you have a good chance of "filling the billet and checking the box"
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I did not deny nor do I deny that there are AF and Navy physicians in the Sandbox, but the common perception or misconception to be specific is that playing in the Sandbox is an Army and Marine Corps thing and since there are no Marine docs, it must be an Army thing. AF and Navy sell that everyday. As Army personnel we are quite aware of what we do but sometimes it comes as a shock to AF and Navy personnel when they are called upon to do the same thing.
That was my only point.
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nearly EVERTHING about MILITARY MEDICINE is a misconception to those not already there.
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Just to make sure all readers are clear on this point, both AF and Navy doctors get deployed frequently to the "sandbox." What service do you suppose provides medical care to all those marines? I anticipate deployment for 4 months every 16-24 months while I'm in.
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Only a shock for new accessions. Anyone who can read knows that the AF took over Balad hospital (now AFTH Balad; http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123025000), because the Army was stretched too thin.
The shock comes when you have to rig multiple borrowed ladies' blowdriers to create a field-expedient Bair Hugger (R) device in Balad, because the AF didn't see fit to provide for temperature homeostasis of active duty trauma patients. Chief problems with this setup: blowing fuses due to amps, and constant threat of electrocution.
The shock will REALLY come when we invade Iran...after all, to ensure totalitarian rule a la 1984, warrantless wiretaps, "alternative" interrogation methods, etc., you need continuous warfare...but I digress into politics. Please forget this paragraph. This sentence self-referentially thanks you for your cooperation with this matter.
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R
http://www.medicalcorpse.com
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The Air Force Medical Corp Prides itself at being the quickest mobile medical unit - this was true even when I was A student. Back then it was the ATF now with the Emedds and CCAT and SPEAR teams and MFS teams the top brass brag at how fast we can up and go and it is faster than a CSH or Hospital Ship (unless the ship is already in the area). The Army can call in a MFS (FST) team and expect to have forward deployed General Surgeon anesthesia ortho ER and OR nurse fully equipped to do surgery on the battle field......... I am not sure if the team has ever been used to be sent forward, but it is on the books as a capability...
The reality is that the Anesthesia pack is taller and heavier than I am and if they think that most of us can carry that gear they are wrong. The special forces people train all the time to carry their gear. I have seen my gear once, and realized it was not something that I could carry.
Most people I know in the USAF are on 2nd and 3rd deployments. T
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It took a SPEARR team 5 hrs to get from Andrews to the Pentagon and up and running. That's not what I call "rapid response" by any definition of the term, seeing as Montgomery County USAR Task Force 1 DMAT was on scene, and actually doing something well before that and they all have other jobs.
Only one real problem with waiting for FAP, if there is no goal for your specialty, you won't get in. Your specialty of Pediatrics is a good example. Navy, at least, has no goal for Peds in FAP (or direct accessions). It is unlikely to have any goal in the future. So, if you wanted to be a Navy Pediatrician, and yes we need them, HPSP would be your only route.
And the vast majority of the Pentagon casualties (I am assuming you are talking about 9/11) were gone in less than an hour.
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that is an understatement....was stationed at one of the big 3....had a huge picture of me at the front of the hospital as "teacher of the year"....Staff physician known by just about every other staff at the hospital....
and when its time for my kids to be seen....."call the Tricare number"...."your appointment is in 8 weeks"....."oh, and it'll be a NP seeing your kids"
Navy Medicine...what a load of BS
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its kind of funny to see the same people on here still grandstanding their opinions to the masses. (sad actually)
however, they are effective...i turned down my HPSP two weeks before class started. and am glad to have nothing but my own decisions ahead of me.
however, they are effective...i turned down my HPSP two weeks before class started. and am glad to have nothing but my own decisions ahead of me.
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Yes, I am speaking of 9/11, and I have first hand knowledge of the fact that the speed of the disposition of the casualties.
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But as FS you do get to fly in various aircraft. As GMO you get to travel on the ships around the world. And i dont know enough about dmo's, but it includes riding submarines, deep diving, interacting with some cool divers. You'll get to be a residency trained doctor for many years to come after you become a civilian, so why should it matter if you lose 4 years? Unless you have absolutely no interests besides medicine.
Also, you could've chosen to do army. then instead of gmo, you could go straight into residency. Sure it would be a bit lame to be a residency trained surgeon making 1/3 of what a civilian makes and not having a set location, but you could still do something for several years that you wouldn't get to do in your 20 years of the civilian career.
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you and the Surgeon general should get along well.
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Hell, NO!
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