- Joined
- May 14, 2007
- Messages
- 31
- Reaction score
- 5
Greetings to all!
So here I am nearing an end of the third year of the FS tour on the HPSP with the Air Force. Those who care to dig through my early posts will see that it was off a stormy start. But frankly, I have little sense of shame for not being a top IQ scorer or USUHS grad. From a humble army medic I clawed my way into the med school and (although not without trauma) through them steps. When I got news of a deferred transitional year and a GMO tour to follow I was terrified. Thought this was a dead end. To those of you who have received that "sentence" I say: relax! Of course, this is personality dependent, but I found flight med to be rather rewarding experience.
First of all, OMT skills picked up at the DO school apparently are a valuable enough commodity in the world of zippered up gods otherwise known as pilots. Oh yes, as weird as it sounds to the non flying folk, pilots and load masters prefer FPR and HVLA adjustment to Flexeril and all them other things that will take away their flying status. Second, at least in my current location I got a chance to engage in practice long lost in US medicine: house visits. Aviators are a clandestine bunch, because almost anything in their health record can cause "wing clipping incident". At the same time they are much more talkative at the squadron rather than inside the doctor's cubicle. Yes, I often do get weird knocks on the door from the neighbors or end up going weird places at the weird hour, but it actually is more flattering than imposing. Third, the learning continues... in a weird way. The primary care and some specialty clinics are overfilled and overburdened, while here at the flight med those empaneled have an easy access for themselves and their families. More than once I had to run across the street to get a help from an "adult", but repetition becomes knowledge and I have picked up a few things that keep me afloat more and more. Yes, there are tasks that I hate with passion: long boring meetings, even longer and often useless waivers and preventive med stuff. But overall, life is good and rewarding.
So what is there to worry about?
The future of course. Time comes to grow up and get a residency which will become a meal ticket after retirement (I got 9 years till hitting 20).
Few things I would hate to do: sell myself too cheap or end up doing something unrewarding with no way out (although pretty much every mousetrap got holes in it)
A year of IM floors made me paranoid of that department: everyone is gloomy, overly cynical overworked crowd whose patients end up dying no matter what they do. Surgery is cool, but back in the days I received an "Arabic flying lesson" and as a result cannot stand on my feet over an hour without blinding pain in the spine. Plus, I'm a sensitive person and may have difficulty keeping a crowbar away from an ear of an arrogant bastard who likes humiliating residents, just because it was done to him and countless creatures before him.
For a moment I considered psychiatry. It was head issues grad studies that gave me idea of the med school in the first place. Weirdly enough I cannot find any psychiatrists around that are not incredibly weird or catatonic and are willing to discuss the clockworks of their trade.
While in medical school I was pretty good in pathology. Recently started hanging out with our path people. They are incredibly nice crowd but there is some sense of insecurity connected to the job market and fellowship issues. Not to mention theirs is one of the hardest boards in medicine and I'm not exactly an academic genius (having English as not even a second, but more like a fourth language does not help here). Being used to direct patient care and a prospect of loosing clinic seems kind of odd too.
Family Practice... tempting, after all that's what it seems like I'm doing now under totally inadequate qualifications. I even applied once for one program location, but got rejected. The voice behind the wall told me that they got scared that it's location and not the specialty that I'm after. Which was not completely untrue at the moment as I got a kid who is about to graduate high school on gazillion of state scholarships. That option would go to the poop house if I PCSed out and dragged him along. Finally, here I am with all the extra goodies of prior service, publishing and schools, so do I really want to fall into the "flight surgeons deserve FPC and nothing else" stigma?
Emergency Med? Not taking your patients home is one glowing plus. But I came in as enlisted in Clinton days and ended up working daily 19 hour shifts in ED where the staffing was halved at best for about two years developing a form of an idiosyncratic reaction to the place. Nevertheless, Iraq was lots of fun (not counting those poor souls that didn't make it). But the hurry up principle of the job does make me feel uneasy. I also really hate it when people die in my hands.
Peds? that's about the only specialty that I didn't play around with. Although it was swell in med school and very rewarding in Internship. Don't get too many kids in flight med, mainly sports physicals. I guess kids are like pilots: dangerously curious, often fussy and usually healthy, but if they get sick, they are really sick.
All them crème de crop specialties like ophthalmology or derm, I haven't bothered considering out of the realities: there are boys and girls geniuses with top scores and charming smiles fighting for them every day, while I am a gloomy old GMO with an accent and terrible interview skills who barely passed his steps.
Oh... finally RAM is cool too, but I'm really uneasy with becoming and admin officer and as mentioned above preventive med is not exactly my bowl of chili.
So, thank you very much to those who read this long ranting to the end. I am now asking for an advice applicable to the future course steerings / choosings. Any input not counting frank trolling is appreciated and potentially rewardable by a ride in cool helicopter over the beach... hey, you never know.
So here I am nearing an end of the third year of the FS tour on the HPSP with the Air Force. Those who care to dig through my early posts will see that it was off a stormy start. But frankly, I have little sense of shame for not being a top IQ scorer or USUHS grad. From a humble army medic I clawed my way into the med school and (although not without trauma) through them steps. When I got news of a deferred transitional year and a GMO tour to follow I was terrified. Thought this was a dead end. To those of you who have received that "sentence" I say: relax! Of course, this is personality dependent, but I found flight med to be rather rewarding experience.
First of all, OMT skills picked up at the DO school apparently are a valuable enough commodity in the world of zippered up gods otherwise known as pilots. Oh yes, as weird as it sounds to the non flying folk, pilots and load masters prefer FPR and HVLA adjustment to Flexeril and all them other things that will take away their flying status. Second, at least in my current location I got a chance to engage in practice long lost in US medicine: house visits. Aviators are a clandestine bunch, because almost anything in their health record can cause "wing clipping incident". At the same time they are much more talkative at the squadron rather than inside the doctor's cubicle. Yes, I often do get weird knocks on the door from the neighbors or end up going weird places at the weird hour, but it actually is more flattering than imposing. Third, the learning continues... in a weird way. The primary care and some specialty clinics are overfilled and overburdened, while here at the flight med those empaneled have an easy access for themselves and their families. More than once I had to run across the street to get a help from an "adult", but repetition becomes knowledge and I have picked up a few things that keep me afloat more and more. Yes, there are tasks that I hate with passion: long boring meetings, even longer and often useless waivers and preventive med stuff. But overall, life is good and rewarding.
So what is there to worry about?
The future of course. Time comes to grow up and get a residency which will become a meal ticket after retirement (I got 9 years till hitting 20).
Few things I would hate to do: sell myself too cheap or end up doing something unrewarding with no way out (although pretty much every mousetrap got holes in it)
A year of IM floors made me paranoid of that department: everyone is gloomy, overly cynical overworked crowd whose patients end up dying no matter what they do. Surgery is cool, but back in the days I received an "Arabic flying lesson" and as a result cannot stand on my feet over an hour without blinding pain in the spine. Plus, I'm a sensitive person and may have difficulty keeping a crowbar away from an ear of an arrogant bastard who likes humiliating residents, just because it was done to him and countless creatures before him.
For a moment I considered psychiatry. It was head issues grad studies that gave me idea of the med school in the first place. Weirdly enough I cannot find any psychiatrists around that are not incredibly weird or catatonic and are willing to discuss the clockworks of their trade.
While in medical school I was pretty good in pathology. Recently started hanging out with our path people. They are incredibly nice crowd but there is some sense of insecurity connected to the job market and fellowship issues. Not to mention theirs is one of the hardest boards in medicine and I'm not exactly an academic genius (having English as not even a second, but more like a fourth language does not help here). Being used to direct patient care and a prospect of loosing clinic seems kind of odd too.
Family Practice... tempting, after all that's what it seems like I'm doing now under totally inadequate qualifications. I even applied once for one program location, but got rejected. The voice behind the wall told me that they got scared that it's location and not the specialty that I'm after. Which was not completely untrue at the moment as I got a kid who is about to graduate high school on gazillion of state scholarships. That option would go to the poop house if I PCSed out and dragged him along. Finally, here I am with all the extra goodies of prior service, publishing and schools, so do I really want to fall into the "flight surgeons deserve FPC and nothing else" stigma?
Emergency Med? Not taking your patients home is one glowing plus. But I came in as enlisted in Clinton days and ended up working daily 19 hour shifts in ED where the staffing was halved at best for about two years developing a form of an idiosyncratic reaction to the place. Nevertheless, Iraq was lots of fun (not counting those poor souls that didn't make it). But the hurry up principle of the job does make me feel uneasy. I also really hate it when people die in my hands.
Peds? that's about the only specialty that I didn't play around with. Although it was swell in med school and very rewarding in Internship. Don't get too many kids in flight med, mainly sports physicals. I guess kids are like pilots: dangerously curious, often fussy and usually healthy, but if they get sick, they are really sick.
All them crème de crop specialties like ophthalmology or derm, I haven't bothered considering out of the realities: there are boys and girls geniuses with top scores and charming smiles fighting for them every day, while I am a gloomy old GMO with an accent and terrible interview skills who barely passed his steps.
Oh... finally RAM is cool too, but I'm really uneasy with becoming and admin officer and as mentioned above preventive med is not exactly my bowl of chili.
So, thank you very much to those who read this long ranting to the end. I am now asking for an advice applicable to the future course steerings / choosings. Any input not counting frank trolling is appreciated and potentially rewardable by a ride in cool helicopter over the beach... hey, you never know.
