Will AF medicine combine with Army's?

[blackajack]

I'm only a pre-med here, but after reading some other threads about the AF, it appears that the AF has been greatly downsizing their GME programs. With this downsizing, do you think the AF will soon combine its GME programs with those of the Army, so that future AF HPSP students will have a wider selection of residencies to apply for?

Or is it more likely that the AF will try to integrate its GME programs with CIVILIAN institutions instead?

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[colbgw02]

I very much doubt that the Army will want to get their fingerprints on that trainwreck.

 

[IgD]

They will replace medical officers with R2D2 looking bots

 

[J-Rad]

The Air Force truly is bizarre in its decision making. While it would make sense to consolidate assets in-house (at least in a broad military sense) especially since there is already one combined Army-Air Force residency system (SAUSHEC), the leadership would probably see it as a loss to AF GME. Look at the push to reopen Keesler's OB/GYN and Pediatric residencies. And truthfully I do wonder if the above poster isn't right about the Army not wanting to "get their fingerprints on that trainwreck"

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Anything could happen in the 15 years between now and when you'll be done with your commitment. Just think, our intervention in Georgia will be 14 years old by then.

 

[a1qwerty55]

The USAF medical department is completely broken as is readily apparent to anyone who reads any of these threads. This comes from a lack of support from their line leaders from the Chief of Staff of the USAF on down. They view the medical department as a drain on their funds which limits their ability to buy $200 million/copy F22's. They have fought integration with the other services under the delusional belief that their doctors (or lack thereof) have a unique skill set while ignoring the fact that the USN and Army have flight surgeons. They have sabotaged the attempts to integrate the medical departments into a combined medical command. When their bases are near an Army installation, they lateral the work, be it pharmacy expenses, after hours care etc, to the Army installation.

My take is they will get steamrolled, there will be an integrated medical command and it won't really matter what happens to the USAF GME system as it will cease to exist as a seperate entity.

 

[elderjack21]

The USAF medical department is completely broken as is readily apparent to anyone who reads any of these threads. This comes from a lack of support from their line leaders from the Chief of Staff of the USAF on down. They view the medical department as a drain on their funds which limits their ability to buy $200 million/copy F22's. They have fought integration with the other services under the delusional belief that their doctors (or lack thereof) have a unique skill set while ignoring the fact that the USN and Army have flight surgeons. They have sabotaged the attempts to integrate the medical departments into a combined medical command. When their bases are near an Army installation, they lateral the work, be it pharmacy expenses, after hours care etc, to the Army installation.

My take is they will get steamrolled, there will be an integrated medical command and it won't really matter what happens to the USAF GME system as it will cease to exist as a seperate entity.

My guess is that they will get eaten up by the army or joined up in some sort of inter-service corps. Even though it is a mess, higher ups always love the opportunity for a inter-service power grab. You can look at the UAV program as an example of this. I would guess that we can look forward to a tri-service medical corps in the future. Hypothetically, it would allow for some cutting down in duplicated red tape...instead there would just be thicker red tape in a larger bureaucracy. These changes don't happen very quickly though, so it could be years before anything like this materializes.