Don't join- 15 yrs done, I'm out

[Carcassonne]

I've been off/on this forum for 20 years, and SDN was helpful as I went through med school and residency. To give back, I've got one piece of advice for those wanting to do surgery in the military- don't join the military. Why?

Technically, I joined in 1999, but with undergrad + med school + 6 yrs of general surgery (mandatory, superfluous research year), I didn't start real service until 2013. Initially, I was posted to a small hospital overseas. This hospital wouldn't exist in the civilian USA due to lack of volume and support (no IR, no gastro, no ICU). It wouldn't even be a same day surgery center because it couldn't get enough patients. The worst setup for a freshly graduated resident who trained in an ivory-tower academic medical center (ironically, that was officially a military program which was ~95% civilian training). I couldn't provide the treatment I wanted to for patients, nor accumulate / sustain skills. In 8 months, I did 40 cases, counting every tiny umbilical hernia that got a primary repair. My presence made little sense since a legit community hospital existed ~20 minutes away with surgical sub-specialists, and a major academic center (trauma, transplants, aortic stents) was ~60 minutes away by ground.

Eventually, the military sent me to Afghanistan for 6 months. That was a 'good' surgical experience. Philosophically, after Kabul fell nearly 2 years ago, you wonder what it was all about, seeing dead and disabled soldiers (US military, Afghan National Army, NATO, Afghan civilians (especially the women and kids)), but that's another discussion. In any case, I briefly considered extending another 6 months rather than return to my 'home' base, but I did want to see my family in CONUS so just did my obligation. Returning to my 'home' station, I did meet my future spouse, and that was probably the only truly good, unique event of my military career.

Seeing how general surgery was a dead end, I sub-specialized and went back to CONUS. After fellowship (not a good one), the military sent me to a major MTF. All in all, I 'liked' working there. Despite all the bureaucracy and inefficiencies, you eventually learn to play the game. We had daVinci Xi robots, and nobody bugged me too much for ordering a MRI. The hospital was large enough that you could 'sneak' in a case if you wheeled-and-dealed enough with the schedulers (the daytime ones were awesome) and said something like cancer or urgent (which was true). Even during the pandemic, we could play these legit games, though elective cases went to nil. Though I never amassed enough volume to keep a civilian happy, I still had enough complexity to feel like I wasn't totally rusting away. Moonlighted for a few shifts, but it was a crummy gig, and sometimes I was the only sub-specialist at the MTF so couldn't really keep it up. I also liked working with military residents- generally highly motivated, dutiful, competent, and a few brilliant.... some of the interns could've been replaced by placid chimps, but the categoricals were reliable.

Despite these positives, the deployments and other BS did me in. The military humanely skipped over one deployment for me (extended family medical emergency where the military provided excellent care at the big MTF), but came for me again. We had a good deal set up where I would go 3 months, and someone else 3... I was OK with this. This was a peacetime deployment with nothing to do. The other person, however, bugged out with an 'injury' (this person possessed certain skills..), and I got stuck 6 months in the Middle East doing 10 cases. ~30 minutes away was a metropolis where they took the odd person who got in an off-duty accident and did a satisfactory job. We went to the big city a few times, there were American chain restaurants... yeah, this was a waste of time. It wasn't just the OCONUS time, though, that hurt. It was all the nonsensical pre-deployment training that took ~2 months, spinning down clinic, and then spinning up clinic, and heaven forbid taking time off to reconnect with family.

Muddling through CBTs, mandatory calls / formations, trying to fit in a drug test with the add-on ex-lap, fighting over ever decreasing OR time, working with a different scheduler every 2-3 months, trying to maintain skills, seeing others docs coast (coasting doesn't bug me, but dumping stuff on others does), threats of 1-3 month non-surgical taskings (COVID, Afghan refugees), repeated and redundant deployment training (at least a month of nonsense away from family and the real hospital)... I hated the game, and I left after fulfilling the minimum obligation. I didn't care about the math and retirement money- the outside world has enough to make any reasonable person content.

Aside from meeting my spouse, I wouldn't have joined the military. Sometimes I wonder about medicine in general, but every jobs has it flaws, and hopefully I've found a gig where I can be content. If I hadn't been at a very large MTF, however, there was no way I could've gotten this outside employment. The surgeons I see staying for 20 are at 17-18 years anyway with their obligation, and there are a few of those... well, you wonder where they are getting hired when they submit their case logs (mine isn't awesome by civ standards, either).

I don't think military surgery will fix itself. The same problems (mainly volume) have existed for over 20 years. Command proposes the same solutions like mil-civ partnerships. Aside from trauma, these don't work out well. 'A house divided cannot serve two masters'- the trauma surgeons usually serve the civilians aside from deployments. Some of the non-trauma, active duty surgeons working mainly civ... their perspectives and situations are sometimes really out-of-whack, and I think if the lay person knew about it, they'd be unhappy where their tax dollars are going...

The only way out is to cut off the supply of surgeons. I hope the military lacks enough fresh grads to fulfill their spots. This would force them to shut down the small, superfluous MTFs (like my first assignment), improve the situation at large MTFs, and curtail the worthless deployments. Actually, they probably wouldn't do any of this, so I'm out. If you're wondering if you should do military surgery, please don't do it... and if you can't help yourself, do the absolute shortest obligation possible.

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[DOswag]

I've been off/on this forum for 20 years, and SDN was helpful as I went through med school and residency. To give back, I've got one piece of advice for those wanting to do surgery in the military- don't join the military. Why?

Technically, I joined in 1999, but with undergrad + med school + 6 yrs of general surgery (mandatory, superfluous research year), I didn't start real service until 2013. Initially, I was posted to a small hospital overseas. This hospital wouldn't exist in the civilian USA due to lack of volume and support (no IR, no gastro, no ICU). It wouldn't even be a same day surgery center because it couldn't get enough patients. The worst setup for a freshly graduated resident who trained in an ivory-tower academic medical center (ironically, that was officially a military program which was ~95% civilian training). I couldn't provide the treatment I wanted to for patients, nor accumulate / sustain skills. In 8 months, I did 40 cases, counting every tiny umbilical hernia that got a primary repair. My presence made little sense since a legit community hospital existed ~20 minutes away with surgical sub-specialists, and a major academic center (trauma, transplants, aortic stents) was ~60 minutes away by ground.

Eventually, the military sent me to Afghanistan for 6 months. That was a 'good' surgical experience. Philosophically, after Kabul fell nearly 2 years ago, you wonder what it was all about, seeing dead and disabled soldiers (US military, Afghan National Army, NATO, Afghan civilians (especially the women and kids)), but that's another discussion. In any case, I briefly considered extending another 6 months rather than return to my 'home' base, but I did want to see my family in CONUS so just did my obligation. Returning to my 'home' station, I did meet my future spouse, and that was probably the only truly good, unique event of my military career.

Seeing how general surgery was a dead end, I sub-specialized and went back to CONUS. After fellowship (not a good one), the military sent me to a major MTF. All in all, I 'liked' working there. Despite all the bureaucracy and inefficiencies, you eventually learn to play the game. We had daVinci Xi robots, and nobody bugged me too much for ordering a MRI. The hospital was large enough that you could 'sneak' in a case if you wheeled-and-dealed enough with the schedulers (the daytime ones were awesome) and said something like cancer or urgent (which was true). Even during the pandemic, we could play these legit games, though elective cases went to nil. Though I never amassed enough volume to keep a civilian happy, I still had enough complexity to feel like I wasn't totally rusting away. Moonlighted for a few shifts, but it was a crummy gig, and sometimes I was the only sub-specialist at the MTF so couldn't really keep it up. I also liked working with military residents- generally highly motivated, dutiful, competent, and a few brilliant.... some of the interns could've been replaced by placid chimps, but the categoricals were reliable.

Despite these positives, the deployments and other BS did me in. The military humanely skipped over one deployment for me (extended family medical emergency where the military provided excellent care at the big MTF), but came for me again. We had a good deal set up where I would go 3 months, and someone else 3... I was OK with this. This was a peacetime deployment with nothing to do. The other person, however, bugged out with an 'injury' (this person possessed certain skills..), and I got stuck 6 months in the Middle East doing 10 cases. ~30 minutes away was a metropolis where they took the odd person who got in an off-duty accident and did a satisfactory job. We went to the big city a few times, there were American chain restaurants... yeah, this was a waste of time. It wasn't just the OCONUS time, though, that hurt. It was all the nonsensical pre-deployment training that took ~2 months, spinning down clinic, and then spinning up clinic, and heaven forbid taking time off to reconnect with family.

Muddling through CBTs, mandatory calls / formations, trying to fit in a drug test with the add-on ex-lap, fighting over ever decreasing OR time, working with a different scheduler every 2-3 months, trying to maintain skills, seeing others docs coast (coasting doesn't bug me, but dumping stuff on others does), threats of 1-3 month non-surgical taskings (COVID, Afghan refugees), repeated and redundant deployment training (at least a month of nonsense away from family and the real hospital)... I hated the game, and I left after fulfilling the minimum obligation. I didn't care about the math and retirement money- the outside world has enough to make any reasonable person content.

Aside from meeting my spouse, I wouldn't have joined the military. Sometimes I wonder about medicine in general, but every jobs has it flaws, and hopefully I've found a gig where I can be content. If I hadn't been at a very large MTF, however, there was no way I could've gotten this outside employment. The surgeons I see staying for 20 are at 17-18 years anyway with their obligation, and there are a few of those... well, you wonder where they are getting hired when they submit their case logs (mine isn't awesome by civ standards, either).

I don't think military surgery will fix itself. The same problems (mainly volume) have existed for over 20 years. Command proposes the same solutions like mil-civ partnerships. Aside from trauma, these don't work out well. 'A house divided cannot serve two masters'- the trauma surgeons usually serve the civilians aside from deployments. Some of the non-trauma, active duty surgeons working mainly civ... their perspectives and situations are sometimes really out-of-whack, and I think if the lay person knew about it, they'd be unhappy where their tax dollars are going...

The only way out is to cut off the supply of surgeons. I hope the military lacks enough fresh grads to fulfill their spots. This would force them to shut down the small, superfluous MTFs (like my first assignment), improve the situation at large MTFs, and curtail the worthless deployments. Actually, they probably wouldn't do any of this, so I'm out. If you're wondering if you should do military surgery, please don't do it... and if you can't help yourself, do the absolute shortest obligation possible.

That's tough. Thanks for your insight and perspective. I'm psychiatry so not exactly the same thing as surgeons lol. But definitely have not seen the pathology I did in residency regarding sever mental health cases. I've diagnosed bipolar maybe a couple of times and the med management wasn't too complicated but then they're med boarded out of the military so there's not even long term management of those. Inpatient psych in residency was much more exciting seeing lots of full blown manic patients, schizophrenia in acute psychosis, mixed symptoms, delirium on consult/liaison psych. Now it's pretty much daily anxiety, depression, lots of personality disorders that meds don't do much for, in a preselected healthy population. Agree 100% with the CBT's, mandatory BS, meetings upon meetings, things trying to take my time away from patient care. I'm planning on separating this summer with 8 years in counting my residency time since it was a split mil/civ program. 27 Jul can't come fast enough.

 

[DMBandFan86]

So what did you think it was going to be like when you signed up?

 

[Gastrapathy]

In the late 90s, prior to 9-11 and the decimation of Navy Medicine, we thought (and were told) a lot of things that were different. The doctors we spoke to had only served in a well funded peacetime military medical system and were generally quite happy. There was no forum like this to share the truth. So I can’t speak for the OP but most of us who joined in that era didn’t anticipate the changes of the last two decades.

 

[Carcassonne]

So what did you think it was going to be like when you signed up?

I was 17, and as said before, there wasn't a robust Internet forum, so just word of mouth from primary care physicians. My family wasn't medical, and I lived in a small town in the south.

I thought it would just be like regular, civilian medicine in CONUS with opportunities to do international / humanitarian medicine. You know, like the ER show plus Doctors Without Borders- I was really young and idealistic, i.e. dumb. My thinking was that the U.S. military was America's outstanding organization which took its job extremely seriously (given the stakes) and valued duty and execution over silly things like money. We would work hard, be paid less, but commanders would ensure we would be good at our job. I trusted the military.

Plus they paid for school. That was true.

Also, sometimes I see posts about a young person wanting to be a ER Surgical Special Forces Pediatric Cardiothoraic Pararescueman.* And I don't mock them, because long ago I thought shooting assault rifles, survival training, jumping out of airplanes, would be fun. As the adults would reply, you can do that on your own dollar, and it's more fun to chill out in Yosemite with your bud than humping 40 pounds in soaked boots at 0200 trying to hit a way point in the middle of a forested hill. But what made 'fun' stuff really painful was the hurry-up-and-wait (spend 0700-1700 for something that takes 3 hours), get chewed out for no reason, having to organize travel, government travel cards, DTS (I hope you never learn what that is), and being pulled into stuff last minute so you can cancel a fun trip to Mexico or a honeymoon.

And on deployment, at times it was real, but the absurdity sometimes... Catch-22 is a documentary, not a novel.

I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who made a dumb decision. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell the way things are... you can be with someone beautiful (and you kids) and not spend months away from them, you can do interesting, meaningful things outside the military... and if you can't help it, just enlist for the shortest contract, get it out of your system, and get on with life.

*Special Operations Surgical Teams need more surgeons. But some of these surgeons suffer on the clinical side- the SOST pipeline plus the frequent deployments can really hurt. They try to attach SOST to civilian hospitals but with varying success- what hospital wants a part-timer? I'd rather have an obese, chain-smoking community vascular surgeon who bangs out fem-pops every week trying to salvage my extremity than a SOST surgeon, no offense. SOST surgeons are also put in crummy situations. 'Austere' may sound romantic, but when the patient dies, there's guilt and wondering what-if. The line has as good an understanding of medicine as most docs do of small unit tactics, i.e. none., but the line dictates medical's mission. I would really caution someone wanting to do SOST. If you want general surgery trauma, do civilian trauma at a knife-and-gun club, and if stuff hits the fan, you can volunteer then or get drafted.

 

[militaryPHYS]

I really am sorry it wasn’t what you were expecting and I’m thankful for the time you served.

My only real issue with some of these “regret posts” comes when someone serves their initial payback, doesn’t like it, yet signs on for more via fellowship. Then when still unhappy they decide to come on and report how awful it all was while also claiming they are leaving after their minimum obligation. At some point this military medicine thing served you and this country. Once it stops being a net positive then that person should go.

Not sure this is the truth @Gastrapathy is referencing but honestly I think these examples are good for people to hear. Typically people are irritated by the usual pitfalls of MilMed that every person laments about. Thankfully these comments provide second thought for others who may stumble across this forum and who also haven’t shadowed or spent time around MilMed before signing up.

Expect it will be a crappy clinical practice. If you get stuck deploying to crappy places expect your home life to be crappy as well. If you are worried about this then don’t sign up. If you see signs of any of this during your first 4 years of payback then please leave as soon as you can.

 

[Carcassonne]

My only real issue with some of these “regret posts” comes when someone serves their initial payback, doesn’t like it, yet signs on for more via fellowship. Then when still unhappy they decide to come on and report how awful it all was while also claiming they are leaving after their minimum obligation.

My fellowship was just a year and civilian sponsored which incurred *no* additional commtiment. To do fellowship, I was discharged from the military, lost all benefits (didn't even qualify for the VA), was paid by civilians, and got civilian insurance with healthcare. Active duty Tricare really beats civ sector for patients when it comes to bills. I then had to reenter the military after a year which Finance had extreme difficulty figuring out (first paycheck delayed by several weeks). I'm unsure if civilian sponsored is even an option anymore.

In many ways, I didn't want to do fellowship to end the pain faster, if just by a year.

So why did I do fellowship while in the military?

1). My surgical skills were massively degraded after 3 years overseas with nearly 6 years left to do. 6 months of damage control surgery doesn't lateralize well to peacetime. Due to lack of patients at the OCONUS base, I couldn't evolve, be mentored, etc., much less sustain. Fellowship would let me resurrect my skills. If I had been a busy general surgeon, I would probably have not done fellowship.
2). If I didn't do fellowship, I would probably be sent to another small MTF for 6 years. At that point, I probably wouldn't be much of a surgeon. Honestly, my career would die. I don't see how a diligent civilian hospital would gamble on me, though, after listening to the Dr. Death podcast who knows.
3). Specializing guaranteed me go to a major, academic MTF = more volume. Even then, some of those MTFs are lousy; I lucked out.
4). I sort of 'like' my speciality. Doing the same procedures, seeing the same pathology, experiencing the zebras within a field... it improves my performance and hopefully patient outcomes.
5). Doing fellowship after 3 years of being an 'attending'... humbling but mainly frustrating. I can't see doing it after 9 years of general surgery. Some fellowships are particularly obnoxious, i.e. they basically want cheap PAs. I spent more time driving to different hospitals some weeks than operating.
6). Really big MTF = real hospital. Because we did have some senior surgeons, I received great mentorship at times and could call in other specialists. I wouldn't have this support at other MTFs. We had great GI and IR- they wanted to be more busy, and helped out a lot. Blood bank was stacked. Real ICU beds. PICC nurses, TPN available. Wound Ostomy clinic. Residents (thank you) save me a lot of irritation and could help with multi-tasking. I didn't feel guilty treating sick people.
7). Oddly... at my assigned base, there was actually a 'need' for the speciality. Sometimes we were overstaffed, sometimes I was solo. About every 3 months, Tricare routed a patient to us with a real problem for somewhere else in the DoD that took a long plane ride. This didn't make any geographic sense, but the smaller MTFs might try to treat a patient for awhile before getting to us. Selection bias here, but the generally small civilian hospitals that would help with these patients at the nearby MTFs... maybe it was motivation, money, or not-my-problem-if-they're-not-actively-dying... we'd get some sick people. This said, a lot of the other military specialists were at bases that absolutely did not need them; they could only survive with a civ partnership.
8). Didn't really matter much, but by sub-specializing, perhaps I could avoid some of the more heinous taskings... that wasn't really true... should've done plastics...
9). Outside the boonies... general surgery has become a specialist's game. Would you rather have your modified radical mastectomy and ax lymph node dissection performed by a surgical oncologist or breast surgeon who has done 50-100 of them (counting training) or a general surgeon who has done 5 and does one every 4-6 months? Let's be honest.

My post is geared more toward the military-naive high schoolers, college students, med students, and residents looking at FAP. If you've got a 4-5 year obligation, don't specialize. You could go to a top tier fellowship (MD Anderson, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Brigham)... and be sent to a place where you will absolutely rot. The worst scenario is getting a tough case, deciding to treat it because you did fellowship at a strong program and you're *supposed* to handle this (it's why you did fellowship, right?), and having to deal with a difficult outcome, partly because no mentors are nearby. Luck always matters.

For those with 9-12 year obligations, like I had, the choice is harder. The general surgeons I saw do OK-ish were at the very large MTF (those who trained there had an inside track- if you're not an insider, it's hard), moonlighted a lot, or found a MTF with a fruitful civ-partnership (those can be shaky relationships, and deployments will hurt those relationships). If you can figure out the right post-residency base, fellowship may workout. Fellowship training saved my career, but I was lucky. Also, if you do active duty residency and have a 12 year obligation, you may already have 17+ years in by the time you can leave... that was my breaking point to consider continuing, but everyone is different.

Finally, fellowships and military branches are different. Most plastic surgeons seem fed up, but they don't deploy much, and can do complex recon without looking at the clock and questioning reimbursement. Vascular surgery is weird, but they've shielded themselves from deployments recently, good on them. Trauma surgery has done the best in protecting their people, but I can't stand managing 20 critical care patients nor babysitting for ortho and neurosurgery (kudos to them- if you like operating, do ortho trauma).

 

[pgg]

In the late 90s, prior to 9-11 and the decimation of Navy Medicine, we thought (and were told) a lot of things that were different. The doctors we spoke to had only served in a well funded peacetime military medical system and were generally quite happy. There was no forum like this to share the truth. So I can’t speak for the OP but most of us who joined in that era didn’t anticipate the changes of the last two decades.

In the 90s our leaders talked with justifiable pride about things like AFIP.

Now they talk about "external resource sharing agreements" that mostly exist only in their imaginations.

It's hard to impress upon prospective med students just how much the world of military medicine has changed since the likes of you & I joined. I'm going to guess that most readers of this forum won't even know what AFIP means without Googling it.

 

[HighPriest]

So what did you think it was going to be like when you signed up?

Probably not:
Join the military, spend decades working your @$$ off so that you can have your skills misappropriated and watch them whither to nothing while you sit in the middle of nowhere doing UAs and mandatory fun runs.

Probably more what they advertise:
Join the military, pick any specialty you want, it’s just like civilian medicine but you also get to serve your country! The military does everything they do on the civilian side!

And yeah, I know recruiters are full of $#!t or at the very least only educated along the party line, but as mentioned a young kid with an impending $3-500,000 who grew up in a household where $45,000 annually was a good job is a little vulnerable to BS.

Now, if you’re referring to deployment: yeah, that I agree, people should expect it. But I also understand if they make the (incorrect) assumption that you get deployed because there’s a high need for your skills and not as a contingency in case they actually need you during a 6 months time frame.

Unless you’ve been in milmed or talked to a number of docs in milmed who aren’t going to blow smoke up your @$$ about how their practice is ”just like a civilian practice,” I don’t know how you would come to understand the way the military sees it’s docs: like tools, as no one else sees them that way. Even corporate medicine.

 

[Gastrapathy]

AFIP’s liver pathologists literally wrote the textbook. Learning liver histology from Ishak, Goodman, etc was such a privilege. I’d almost forgotten AFIP existed too. @pgg

 

[Poetato]

I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who made a dumb decision. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell the way things are... you can be with someone beautiful (and you kids) and not spend months away from them, you can do interesting, meaningful things outside the military... and if you can't help it, just enlist for the shortest contract, get it out of your system, and get on with life.

I love this Shawshank reference lol. One of my favorite movies of all time.

I'm 29 and about to start medical school, and I'm at this fork in the road where I've always wanted to fulfill my goal of serving in the military. But now that I'm older, I wonder if joining would be as glorious and meaningful as I'd imagined. I'm thankful for posts like this--maybe I can find a short contract after/during residency, or maybe joining the reserve would be a better idea.

Thanks for your insight.

 

[Doc320]

I did a one month clerkship in a MTF as a medical student. It was a learning experience, both in medicine, about that branch of military service, and military medicine.

 

[TheEarDoc]

I love this Shawshank reference lol. One of my favorite movies of all time.

I'm 29 and about to start medical school, and I'm at this fork in the road where I've always wanted to fulfill my goal of serving in the military. But now that I'm older, I wonder if joining would be as glorious and meaningful as I'd imagined. I'm thankful for posts like this--maybe I can find a short contract after/during residency, or maybe joining the reserve would be a better idea.

Thanks for your insight.

It's really not ever too late to join. If Uncle Sam needs you bad enough they make a way. I commissioned at 38. In my class at DCC we had a surgeon who was in his late 40's who commissioned directly as an 0-5 so if they need you they will make it happen. I don't regret joining the reserves. Yes the green weenie does come at you from time to time, but I still am enjoying myself so I keep hanging around.

 

[Poetato]

It's really not ever too late to join. If Uncle Sam needs you bad enough they make a way. I commissioned at 38. In my class at DCC we had a surgeon who was in his late 40's who commissioned directly as an 0-5 so if they need you they will make it happen. I don't regret joining the reserves. Yes the green weenie does come at you from time to time, but I still am enjoying myself so I keep hanging around.

Glad to hear that I'll still have opportunities to join later. I was feeling like this may be my last opportunity to join before I'm sitting in a rocking chair regretting that I never did. But I also don't want to feel disillusioned when I join and it's not everything I imagined. I think I can deal with the occasional green weenie lol.

For now, I'll hold off on applying for the HPSP. Joining the reserves seems to align better with my life.

 

[DOswag]

Glad to hear that I'll still have opportunities to join later. I was feeling like this may be my last opportunity to join before I'm sitting in a rocking chair regretting that I never did. But I also don't want to feel disillusioned when I join and it's not everything I imagined. I think I can deal with the occasional green weenie lol.

For now, I'll hold off on applying for the HPSP. Joining the reserves seems to align better with my life.

We may have saved one!

But seriously though as eardoc said, uncle sam will take physicians even later on. I also had an older doc join when I did COT in 2010. I think he was IM if I recall, commissioned as an O-5. I was 25 at the time and I am quite certain that just by appearance alone, he was AT LEAST twice my age. Don't know for sure how old he was though. Also when I was in residency we had a new army attending that joined after being in private practice psychiatry for like 20+ years, just decided she wanted to do something different.

 

[armytrainingsir]

So what did you think it was going to be like when you signed up?

😁

 

[pgg]

😁

It's cold streams to chill your bones, and a hot meal to warm you up!
It's softball, and rope bridges!


Gentlemen, it's party time, Italian style!

 

[HighPriest]

Glad to hear that I'll still have opportunities to join later. I was feeling like this may be my last opportunity to join before I'm sitting in a rocking chair regretting that I never did. But I also don't want to feel disillusioned when I join and it's not everything I imagined. I think I can deal with the occasional green weenie lol.

For now, I'll hold off on applying for the HPSP. Joining the reserves seems to align better with my life.

It’s a constant green weenie that always moves forwards, never back.

Don’t worry, either way you won’t regret it in your rocking chair. You’ll have plenty of other things that you did that gave you a full life.

 

[TheEarDoc]

😁

I was hoping it would be what my first recruiter when I was going to take a 70B contract (thank god I was still a fat %^&# at the time!) because there were no audiology slots, "It's just like boy scout camp in the reserves only with guns!"

 

[TheEarDoc]

Glad to hear that I'll still have opportunities to join later. I was feeling like this may be my last opportunity to join before I'm sitting in a rocking chair regretting that I never did. But I also don't want to feel disillusioned when I join and it's not everything I imagined. I think I can deal with the occasional green weenie lol.

For now, I'll hold off on applying for the HPSP. Joining the reserves seems to align better with my life.

You have to look at joining the military just like anything else in life. You have to balance out the suck factor vs. what you get out of it. I know some people take offense to that and say "no you should join because you want to serve!". Oh I agree you have to have a desire to serve as a medical person to even entertain the idea of joining the military because the pay isn't as good most of the time, the hours and all the other stuff also sucks most of the time, and then there is the unpredictability of it all and possibly being pulled away from a full time job and your family at any point in time. I think without a desire to serve you wouldn't get anyone to sign up.

You also have to know what Uncle Sam can do for you. Joining the reserves has enhanced my professional career and opened a lot of doors in the VA I probably wouldn't have gotten to open without having the military time in (sorry that's how the DOD and VA work. If you got that DD214 you are in my friend) and I still have lots of great opportunities I can pursue on Uncle Sam's dime. There is nothing wrong with a "you scratch my back I scratch yours" mentality when going into military service. I will stay as long as I feel I am at least breaking about even on getting as much as I give. When it stops being that way I will most likely pop smoke (unless I am close to retirement age and then I must just embrace the suck until I hit that 20 year letter).

 

[TheTruckGuy]

I really appreciate these posts. As much as I am glad I joined, and have gotten to do some amazing things that I would have never gotten the opportunity to do as a civilian, the military bureaucracy is painful to deal with. And, as much as I hope more quality and motivated future physicians sign up for the military, sometimes I think the only way for things to get better is for the system to break.