GMO comment from former Surgeon General

[Monty Python]

Eye-opening article by Dr. Koenig, former Navy Surgeon General, on USUHS, HPSP, and GMO tour. Must read, especially the last sentence in the article to get the full impact.

http://www.usmedicine.com/column.cfm?columnID=147&issueID=56

Here's the last sentence: The absence of senior leaders from the Office of the ASD (HA) and the three services at the SMCAF meeting may signal they are not concerned with the current trends.

Author's bio: ....... He spent 32 years on active duty as a Navy physician, was the Navy’s 32nd Surgeon General and served 4 years as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

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[USAFGMODOC]

Great post!

I've read alot on military medicine, but I think this somehow got buried! (hmm, makes me wonder)

 

[orbitsurgMD]

Great post!

I've read alot on military medicine, but I think this somehow got buried! (hmm, makes me wonder)

Of particular note, from the article, which quotes the services' own data:

"Now HPSP students' mean MCAT scores are at the minimum for acceptance to allopathic medical schools."

"Five years ago many scholarships went to students attending top-tier schools. This year there are none."

That is just pathetic.

And this:

"Some, bitter about this training interruption, aren't shy about telling others how they "got screwed" by the system."

Dr. Koenig has written on this particular issue in other articles published in U.S. Medicine. He has commented that not only does the GMO assignment cause a delay to completion of any residency, but that physicians who complete their active duty service obligation as a GMO have more difficulty obtaining attractive civilian residency slots than do civilian applicants who are planning uninterrupted training. Military service and GMO duty actually hurts your chances at getting a good civilian residency.

And this:

"Though favored by many in the defense medical leadership, it was resisted by some senior physicians and the Services. Senior physicians resisted because they believe a GMO tour is a good growth experience"

A good growth experience? For what? It seems the "senior medical leadership" just doesn't care at all.

The shortsighted policies of BUMED have now produced a large cohort of former military physicians who have less than positive things to say about how the military does business when it comes to training and tasking medical personnel. If they are out and in practice, why should they be reticent to criticize the very real policies of the military they didn't like?
Most won't post their thoughts here, but if they work with students, their words find the right ears.

Recruiters count on premed students not knowing every little bit about medical training before they have them signed. Important details about access to training and professional utilization simply aren't on their radar screens then; many aren't sure what they want from training at that time. And while a genuine wish to contribute something of worth to the country might motivate some desirable candidates, the thought of having to do so at an unnecessary expense of delaying or even derailing career training makes many think twice. The word is out.

 

[Mirror Form]

"Five years ago many scholarships went to students attending top-tier schools. This year there are none."

Yeah, I really think this trend has a lot to do with the internet. Now the naive premeds can go online and research what the recruiters didn't tell them.

Of course, the increased deployments certainly aren't helping either.

 

[rotatores]

umm...this article is over 2 yrs old...

 

[orbitsurgMD]

umm...this article is over 2 yrs old...

At least. The shame is that the problem is still here.

 

[island doc]

OK, I confess I am "one of those" who is "bitter" over being "screwed by the system". There you have it folks, but I am sure this fact has not been lost on anyone.

 

[ishii123]

ARTICLE STATES:
"Applications for HPSP have declined over the last five years from more than four to less than two per scholarship. Five years ago many scholarships went to students attending top-tier schools. This year there are none. Now HPSP students' mean MCAT scores are at the minimum for acceptance to allopathic medical schools. Over half of this year's scholarships went to osteopathic students, although there are only twenty osteopathic schools and 125 allopathic schools in the nation."

• Sounds like a jab at osteopathic (D.O.) med schools. Just an observation.

 

[SquidDoc]

ARTICLE STATES:
"Applications for HPSP have declined over the last five years from more than four to less than two per scholarship. Five years ago many scholarships went to students attending top-tier schools. This year there are none. Now HPSP students' mean MCAT scores are at the minimum for acceptance to allopathic medical schools. Over half of this year's scholarships went to osteopathic students, although there are only twenty osteopathic schools and 125 allopathic schools in the nation."

• Sounds like a jab at osteopathic (D.O.) med schools. Just an observation.

That is what it sounds like to me as well...

 

[USAFdoc]

OK, I confess I am "one of those" who is "bitter" over being "screwed by the system". There you have it folks, but I am sure this fact has not been lost on anyone.

actually, I do not feel bitter about my service time. It is over with and I have a wonderful new life and job.

I am angry that the USAF is still getting away with running a healthcare system like they do. It makes it all the worse that they continue to advertise military medicine like it is some kinda oasis of healthcare, so much better that the civilian market, when in general, just the opposite is true.

 

[deuist]

Sounds like a jab at osteopathic (D.O.) med schools. Just an observation.

Maybe, but perhaps there is a different meaning. Osteopathic schools are very expensive. Further, osteopathic docs generally have a difficult time with being accepted into the medical community. Therefore, an easy way for DO's to pay for school and to get integrated with the health care system is through HPSP.

 

[SquidDoc]

Maybe, but perhaps there is a different meaning. Osteopathic schools are very expensive. Further, osteopathic docs generally have a difficult time with being accepted into the medical community. Therefore, an easy way for DO's to pay for school and to get integrated with the health care system is through HPSP.

...probably not a good idea to say that DOs have a hard time being accepted in the medical community...they are accepted in every scope of practice, in all 50 states. I used to think that it was a much older generation that perpetuated such a myth, but now I think it is those individuals in my generation, which unfortunately tells me that myths like these will be around long after I retire as a DO dermatologist (probably) after 30+ years of practice.

I do agree about the cost comment. Back when I was at OIS, ~50% of the medical corps in my class were osteopathic.

 

[Idiopathic]

Maybe, but perhaps there is a different meaning. Osteopathic schools are very expensive. Further, osteopathic docs generally have a difficult time with being accepted into the medical community. Therefore, an easy way for DO's to pay for school and to get integrated with the health care system is through HPSP.

I would agree with this. At our school, out of state tuition is 35K+ a year, and it really doesnt make sense unless you have some second party to help foot the bill. We still have out of state applicants and students though, but something like half of them are HPSP.

 

[FliteSurgn]

I don't really think it's a jab at D.O. schools. It's about proportions...there are 20 osteopathic schools vs. 125 allopathic schools. So D.O. schools make up less than 14% of the medical schools in this country yet the osteopathic students made up 50% of the "scholarship" recipients.

 

[SquidDoc]

I don't really think it's a jab at D.O. schools. It's about proportions...there are 20 osteopathic schools vs. 125 allopathic schools. So D.O. schools make up less than 14% of the medical schools in this country yet the osteopathic students made up 50% of the "scholarship" recipients.

He was not just giving a statistic to demonstrate the diversity of the medical corps. I think that it is a jab because while he is referring to the proportions, he is insinuating that this shift-to-the-osteopathic majority is a problem. I do not think that it is a problem that another DO student such as myself took the scholarship versus a given MD from any other school...I am sure that I will serve a GMO billet just the same as the next fresh LT, MDs included.

 

[Croatalus_atrox]

I don't think he was bagging on Osteopathic medicine, per se. The truth is that, on average, osteopathic medical schools accept students with slightly lower GPAs and generally lower MCAT scores than allopath schools do. Look the data on the AAMC and AACOM websites. For the years where comparable data are available, matriculating osteopath students had GPAs ~0.2 lower than matriculating allopath students and MCAT scores ~5 points lower.

He was using the increasing numbers of osteopath HPSP students as another example of the "declining" academic quality of future military medicine physicians, as he illustrated with the USUHS and allopathic school tier examples. This demonstrates that a career, or even a stint, in military medicine isn't desirable to the more "competitive" future physicians. The military cannot afford to be choosy about who they select to receive scholarships anymore, and they're probably accepting candidates now that they would not have accepted 5-10 years ago.

Don't harsh on me, though. I've always thought that GPA and MCAT scores have little to do with the quality of physician a person will become. The military, however, likes to have firm, objective numbers when making decisions, and those kind of measurements don't show osteopathic medicine in its best light.