A second year's opinion on BOLC

I got my official reservation for BOLC, Basic Officer Leadership Course (medical officer basic training), in the email this week.  It's really happening.  Maybe I'll start to feel more like a officer in the military after BOLC.  As it's coming up in a few months I had a few questions.  Luckily for me I had a second year Army HPSP student to talk to about it.

At an event I started talking to one of the second year students about BOLC, or officer basic training.  He told me a great many things, such as it's a lot easier than you think.  You don't have to worry about failing your physical fitness test.  You only do about thirty minutes a day of physical fitness.  You get a lot of time to yourself to do whatever you want.  You can get hurt if you don't pay attention.  The tests and quizzes are a joke for a med student, though some people (usually not med students) still fail sometimes.  There's only other medical officers (dentists, doctors, vets, nurses, etc.) at the training and most of them are a bit older than your typical first year med student.  And you meet an incredibly diverse set of people.

A worry of mine about joining the military has been about the homophobia that might be present.  I know Don't Ask, Don't Tell is long gone, but certain attitudes might still remain.  When this worry was brought up to the second year, he said not to worry.  At BOLC, the Army kills you by powerpoints about a lot of different topics including how to be a leader, sexual harassment, and discrimination.  The official stance is don't be a douche and don't discriminate.  Now I pretty much get along with everyone, though I don't doubt there are some people would like to see the gays out of the military.  Even still the second year's words made me feel better about my decision.  It's a different country now than it was ten, twenty years ago.  I love being able to serve proudly, while still being the best version of myself.  

2LT Lister    

Thoughts on quality of Army residencies

     While a couple of Army HPSP students and I were waiting around for an event we started asking each other questions.  Okay, it was mostly my friend and me asking the prior service field artillery officer what he felt about Army docs or the quality of Army doctors.

     It seems there is a general idea that Army or military doctors are not as good as civilian doctors.  One possible reason is that some medical students may join up and then decide to embrace mediocrity and put in very little effort to becoming the best doctor they can become.  They think that school is paid for and a residency is almost assured, so why put in the extra effort.

     I will say it is true that if you are wanting to go into a super sub-specialized area of medicine then going down the military route might not be the best decision.  There aren't an extraordinary number of specialities available as military residencies.  Even so, there is no guarantee that you will be allowed to pursue those residencies/fellowships.  The military can get more use out of, for example, a general pediatrician than a pediatric cardiologist with extra training in fetal imaging.  

     Plus, even in the civilian world, those sub-specialties and fellowships are very competitive. Therefore it is likely the highest achievers will get those spots and are also not as likely to join the military, because it limits options.  Also since military doctors get paid less than their civilian counterparts, that's another reason for not attracting the "cream of the crop".  (Though when you factor in the military benefits, it does come close to evening out.)

     All this being said, the military does attract very intelligent, hard working medical students and doctors.  But what about the quality of the residency programs?  Do they compare?  As a first year medical student I cannot say for sure, but I wanted to point out a few things.

     Residency programs, state to state, hospital to hospital differ greatly.  I think what hospital you end up at matters more than whether it's military or not.  For instance Walter Reed has some amazingly strong residency programs, and to say they're inferior to any civilian program just because it's military is ridiculous.  

     Finally, I think if you want to be a great doctor you can become one.  If you have the drive, even if you end up at a sub-par residency program (civilian or military) you can still guide your own learning.  Besides we all have different definitions on what being a great doctor means, so live by your own definition and become that doctor.

     And as for residency, I'm sure more thoughts will be forthcoming.

2LT Lister