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    

Getting into shape for BOLC

     The bad news: studying all the time and a med school diet mean you are probably not in the best of shape and now you're worried about BOLC this summer.

     The good news: if you fail your APFT, Army Physical Fitness Test, don't stress.  You don't have to pass it officially until you graduate med school and head to residency.  However, it's better to get good habits ingrained now and not have to worry about it three years from now.

Below are some standards I found for the Army PFT.

So if you're not an athlete, or you haven't been one since college, how do you get into shape?  For me it was about finding the proper motivation.  I decided to sign up for my first half marathon and take pictures of my progress.  Also I used some of my bonus money to invest in a basic home gym.  Therefore on a cold day I would have no excuse.  To get to a place of being able to even train for the half marathon I did this workout for a month.  It was easily adjustable and it worked the whole body.  Also a good idea is to do a mock APFT at the end of each month to see how much farther you might need to go.

Stay on your workouts, but if you need to study then study.  But don't let Netflix take a hold of your free time when you could be on the elliptical watching Netflix.

On that note, I need to stop writing and get my lazy ass on the elliptical.  Hooah!

2LT Lister

Someone tell me how to Army!

     With the completion of the first semester, my eyes turned to the summer.  I knew that at some point in the summer I would be at BOLC, Basic Officer Leadership Course, at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.  (Air Force equivalent: COT and Navy equivalent: OBC).  BOLC is basic training for medical officers.

     From everything I've read it is very different from the Basic Training that enlisted soldiers go through or the training other officer candidates might go through.  Because we didn't have to earn our officer title, we were direct commissioned officers (like lawyers, medical professionals, and religious leaders).  Therefore we need specific training to our very specific job.  As future doctors our job is not to order around infantrymen, it is to lead a medical team, diagnose and treat.

     I was excited, but curious.  I hadn't heard anything about BOLC yet from anyone official.  I wanted to fit in some research or an externship in my free weeks, but I had no idea when BOLC actually was going to be this summer.  So after searching the internet with no answers I went to my next best resource: Facebook.

     There is a Facebook group called, "Military HPSP Students & Physicians", and I encourage all HPSP students to join it.  Any question you might have can be answered in that group.  So I asked and soon my question was answer to my great disappointment.  The way BOLC fell smack dab in the middle of my summer meant I didn't have enough time for a summer research project or a formal externship, or even to volunteer at our classes' summer service project.

     As a HPSP student you go to an abbreviated version of BOLC, a six week and some days long course.  There is a component you have to complete online before you get there, but I haven't really looked much into it yet.

     I heard about applying to BOLC in early to mid January.  The application is simple.  My biggest question though was: fly or drive?  I had done my research.  Everyone told people to drive their own vehicle even if coming from far away, even if it meant not getting reimbursed for your extra travel.  Because the Army will pay for gas up to the cost of a plane ticket, because if your fuel is going to be more than that, then you should be flying.

     After talking it through with a couple of my fellow Army HPSPers at my school I decided to go ahead and fly.  We're pretty far away from Texas, and for us flying was the cheaper choice if perhaps not the smartest one.  I don't know yet.  BOLC is in three months.  I'll let you know then.

     One other thing of note is that when it comes to HPSP, no one knows anything.  We follow blindly until we heard otherwise.  I am fortunate in that we have five Army HPSPers in my class.  We help each other out, and we have a Military Medical Interest Group which is a great resource as well.
     But mostly, we do what we think we should be doing, making class our first priority.  Because ultimately nothing matters if we flunk out of medical school.

     So now I am officially caught up to present day.  Posts with come up as I find things to write about.  Until next time!

2LT Lister

The summer before and the start of medical school

     Once you're commissioned, there really isn't much for your recruiter to do.  He/She will help you set up your AKO email, set up direct deposit, and introduce you to your Medcom site.  On the Medcom site you can file for reimbursement, get info, apply for ADT, Active Duty for Training, and a few other things I haven't done yet.

     (All of this has to do with Army specific HPSP things.  I'm not sure where and how Navy and Air Force differ in their regulatory sites and emails.)

     So until school starts, finish school, quit your job, and enjoy your last free summer!  I quit my job with a month left until school.  I went to California and relaxed and purchased school supplies.  Which, a note on finances: you will not get any of your bonus money or school money until after school starts.

     The Army pays on the 1st and the 15th of the month or the closest business day before either date.  I started classes (which doesn't include the previous week of orientation) around August 3rd and I got my first paycheck on the 15th.

     So the first few weeks of med school were rough financially.  If you can, save up, and know it could be a while before you get paid.  A friend of mine didn't get his first paycheck until a month into school.  There was a clerical error, the first of many for us all.  Also, if you decided to take the 20,000 dollar bonus (which not sure why you wouldn't, there is no extra obligation in taking it) then expect to get the first installment a month after you start classes.

     Not sure if this was the case for everyone, but my bonus was all given to me in a month and a half and was in increments of 2,000, 9,000, and 9,000, of course minus the taxes taken out.  I think I ended up with around 14,000 total after taxes.

     The military knows medical school is busy.  They don't want you to focus on your military career just yet.  They want you to pass medical school.  So don't expect much communication from anyone, and if you need something or have a question don't expect to get one from any official lines.

     As officers in the Inactive Ready Reserve (what you are while attending school) no one pays us much mind.  We go to class, study, take tests and mostly you forget you're in the military.

     That is, until you try and get something reimbursed.  Keep all your receipts and know that the military won't reimburse everything or every textbook.  It has to be a required textbook, so if your request is audited be prepared to show the required book list from your syllabus.  I tried to get reimbursement for the ipad they forced all the first year med students to get.  It was a required material, so I submitted my request.  Denied that day.  So that sucked, but at least once I got my bonus money I could pay off the buy now/pay later plan I used to get the ipad.

The goal for us for the first semester was simple: Pass.  And so we did.

Next up on ADIT, Army Doc In Training: no one knows anything and thoughts of BOLC.


2LT Lister

Why do I want to become an Army Doc?

     "Why do I want to become an Army Doc?" is such a big question, but I'll try and be succinct and keep it simple.

     I have always wanted to be a doctor, well perhaps not always, but since I was around eight years old.  My Grandma sent me a Fisher Price doctor kit and I fell in love.  I diagnosed and treated all sorts of teddy bear maladies and barbie doll injuries.  From that point onward I knew that's all I wanted to do in life.  I'm not sure where my passion for medicine comes from, maybe it's God given, but one thing is for sure: I am supremely grateful for that passion.

     I hate to be a cliche, but since sometimes cliche happens, 9/11 is what made me really consider the military for the first time.  I was a young teenager living close enough to NYC to feel threatened by the events of that morning.   If I was old enough I might have signed myself up right then and there.  But there was one major problem: I wanted to be a doctor.

     Enlisting right off would delay my college plans and frankly I didn't think I was tough enough to be one of the enlisted.  I thought about ROTC in college, but even then that was likely to delay and perhaps even derail my medical school plans.  Of course as a teenager, TV was a big influence and I had been mainlining MASH episodes.  The military had to have doctors!  Hawkeye wouldn't lie to me!  So I began researching military medicine and that's when I found HPSP.

     I was fifteen the first time I found out about the Health Professions Scholarship Program.  It's a too good to be true deal.  If you qualify the military (Army, Air Force, and Navy) pays for your medical school, your textbooks, tests, and gives you a monthly stipend.  In return after you finish all your training you owe the military four years of active duty service (for a 4 yr. scholarship).

     It was the perfect choice for me.  But why Army, you ask?  I had three choices: Army, Air Force, and Navy (the Navy provides medical care for the Marines as well).  I didn't have any immediate family that was in the military.  In fact my parents and siblings did their best to talk me out of the decision to serve.  But the point of no connections was that I was free to evaluate all the services and make a decision independent of outside biases.

     The Navy as a choice was out for me almost immediately.  I read places that after medical school you don't go straight into residency, you serve as a GMO, General Medical Officer, for a number of years first.  I wanted to specialize.  I wanted my residency.

     Then it became a tough choice between the Air Force and the Army.  Air Force seemed like the more comfortable of the two services and having a greater number of women.  As a woman, this was a concern to me.  I even shared a few emails with a AF recruiter before finally deciding on the Army.  Why?  Again it came down to the residency.  I wasn't sure what type of medicine I wished to practice, but I wanted choice.  And the Army has the most amount of specialties for its residents mostly because the Army has the greatest number of doctors.

     So there you have it.  My story to the Why of this.  Now a quick disclaimer: the military isn't right for everyone and there is something truly great about each branch of the Armed Forces.  This is my opinion alone.  I hope through this blog I can help give light to us gluttons for punishment: the future military docs.

2LT Lister