DD 214 picked up, final out completed, terminal leave commencing. I’m done with my time on active duty! I’ve been waiting for a long time to write this discharge summary, and I’m a little surprised to admit that it is bittersweet. I’ve spent the vast majority of my time hating being in the military and resenting my role in it. Now, with life moving onward at steep positive trajectory, I can appreciate some of my time spent in service to this great nation.
I’m not exactly a dump my purse out on to the table type of guy but I’ve decided to share my sob story here and let it be food for thought for those that find their way onto this forum. It’s something that I’ve been living with for the past 4.5 years and since this is my swan song, I’m going to spin my yarn.
Med school, BOLC, and then reported for duty as a general surgery intern. For those of you who don’t know, at the time the common practice would be for MS4s to match to a surgical prelim year, with the understanding that there were less residency positions than interns. So someone was getting cut, and typically the PD or APD would let the unlucky (or lucky?) intern know sometime in August so that they had time to re-apply to a different specialty. That played out as it does, and my colleague who was selected for the culling re-applied and successfully matched to a different specialty. I had my 3-month meeting with the PD and he told me to keep working hard, to keep learning, that he wanted to pick me up. With my colleague cut I thought I was in. I re-applied to general surgery and crossed my fingers.
I got called into the office in late October of my intern year and was told I would not be continuing in GS training. I was also advised that the whole prelim system was going away, so there would be no residency spot for me to come back to. My surgical career in the Army was over just like that. I was flabbergasted, hurt, betrayed, pick your adjective.
So what to do? The only thing to do is to continue on with my surgical internship, which as you know is arriving at the hospital at 5AM, going home at 7PM, reading for a few hours, catch 5 or 6 hours of sleep, and repeating. The difference here is that I knew I wasn’t going to be continuing surgical training, and that if I slacked off it would be just more work for my fellow interns. I kept working. I put my head down and rammed my way through it.
Next stop, GMO land. I went to flight surgeon school, reported to my duty station, and deployed almost immediately. I returned home ready to re-submit my application to medical training, this time in EM. I interviewed at all the spots, ranked as best I could, and was again disappointed at a non-select. At this point, I started taking it a little personally. I spoke to the advisor to the OTSG and he advised me that I was a good candidate in a very competitive specialty in a very competitive year, and that I should stick with it and re-apply next cycle. It was at that point I realized that I would owe more time in the Army if I did that, and that there was a strong possibility that I would be sent right back to an aviation unit to be a brigade surgeon upon completion of residency. I have no desire to push any more papers, so I opted to no longer apply in the military, and be a GMO and GTFO.
I knew I made the right choice as civilian opportunities started to become available. I’m not a believer in god, or fate, or the universe, but I am a believer in walking through an open door. All of the military doors had slammed shut, but in the civilian world they were all opening. I went through as many as I could, which has culminated in a successful civilian match in EM.
Now with everything at home and at work being so overwhelmingly positive, it’s hard for me to hold on to any anger or resentment anymore. I think I’ve spent enough time with negativity anyhow. Honestly, what has healed it the most has been coming to understand how the Army works, and how the Army does business. It was a pretty crushing blow to be rejected for residency a mere 4 months into my medical career. I tend to internalize, so first I blamed myself for being a crappy doctor. Then, I blamed my PD, as I felt as though he had lied to me. Finally, I learned a few things about my replacement in GS, and about some of the family connections they had, and now I realize that I probably never had a chance at succeeding in that scenario. For all I know, Big Army could have called my PD and told him to make room at whatever cost, and I was next in the execution line. Or maybe not, I can never really know and at this point I’m not interested in finding out. Truth usually lies in the middle of extremes.
I hate that the Army is unable to train many of its young docs in specialties that they are qualified to train in and so get pushed into TYs. I hate that so many TYs get pushed into GMO time. I hate that medical careers get delayed or compromised in order for these GMO years to happen. I hate that new grads from IM or EM get pushed into brigade surgeon jobs. But that is the deal you sign with this devil. The military as a whole exists to engage and kill the enemy. That’s all. Everything else is just gravy. It’s not an institution that wants to make real progress in cancer research, or produce the safest surgeons, or become an educational Mecca. At the end of the day, it’s an institution that uses violence to further the interests of the United States of America.
It didn’t work out for me in the Army. And that’s fine. At this point, my perspective is such that I lucked out with GMO and GTFO. I loved surgery but I am glad that I am not going down that road anymore. It hurt getting cut but I’ve made my peace with that and I am glad to be entering the world of EM instead. And I’m glad that I didn’t get picked up for EM in the Army. Army training is great but let’s face it: the civilian population is older, sicker, has made worse life decisions, and has poorer methods of resolving conflict. That’s the place that I want to train in EM. When I graduate, I will not be faced with the prospect of getting sent to Ft. Polk to see sprained ankles, or become a brigade surgeon in Korea.
On the flip side, I got an incredibly expensive medical school paid for. I had enough rapport with my command teams that I basically did whatever I wanted, to include moonlighting like crazy and having plenty of office hours spent on the golf course. I met a lot of great people. I had the chance to assist on a bowel re-anastomosis of a young soldier that took AK rounds to the abdomen. I took 300 soldiers in Africa during rainy season and brought them all back malaria-free. I think those are the things that will stick with me.
But with all that said, I wouldn’t do it again, and as I have said many times before I would never advise a pre-med to go into the military unless their goal is to become an Army officer. There are simply too many pitfalls that can ensnare a doc and delay/derail/devalue their careers, and as a pre-med with a fresh acceptance letter in hand and no prior military experience, you cannot make a truly informed decision at that point in your life. After years of hard work and sacrifice, it’s simply not worth it unless you have a burning desire to serve your country. I would offer that there are many ways to do that, and the military is not the only route to service of your country. The military will demand a high price however, and what is offered in return may or may not be worth that sacrifice.
Thanks for reading this far, and thanks to everyone on this forum who has offered advice, commiseration, or a laugh. I’m looking at you
@psychbender @pgg @Homunculus @HighPriest @Gastrapathy @Clap MD @DrMetal @Slevin @Helpful Troll . I’ve said my piece and I’m leaving this fight. I’ll still lurk but don’t imagine I will have much else to say that I haven’t already said. It’s time to move on.
WernickeDO out.
