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