On-post housing?

Does anyone have any experiences or advice about living on-post versus off? I have talked with many people who have enjoyed living on-post but I am still wondering about the rules, waitlists, type of houses. Do many other MD's live on-post? It would be great to get to know the other families.

Thanks for your help,

Anne

[DCJenn]

I can only answer for where we've been stationed- Ft. Sam and Walter Reed.

Walter Reed has no officer housing (unless of course your husband is the Commander of the hospital- then he gets a FAB victorian with views of the city...) Bethesda Naval Med Cen/USUHS also has ZERO.

Ft. Sam is in the process of refurbishing all of the officer housing (deperately needed) so the waiting lists are really long. I spoke to the rep and he told me as one house vacates they're going in and as with all home improvement projects, once they're in they're finding all kinds of stuff wrong.

I can't answer for Lackland- I know they have officer housing as it's the training base but I don't know any of the docs who live there.

If you go to the website for the individual bases and click on housing, there's usually a site for the waiting lists with pictures of the houses and layouts. The military is going to contracted maintenance which seems to be working much better. They're better landlords and better managers.

The only docs that I know who live on post are the Big Wigs- the hospital commanders, the Chief of residency programs, etc.

Jenn

Well, from this area (Eglin, Hurlburt, Duke Field) the housing is a long wait at least 6-9mths. The housing itself is pretty sad.
Only one doctor in the Ped clinic here lives on base. Everyone else is off-base. It is a little strange here, as the doc that is on base kinda gets hit with all the last second "needs" of patients/hospital issues. Although it keeps you in the middle of whatever you might need as well, commissary, wellness center, BX, etc.

I can only answer from our limited experience as well but here goes:

Base housing is very different at each base! It has been not so great at both bases (Kirtland and Keesler). Waiting lists are long and the "catch" is that your name is only "active" on the waiting list for 30 days prior to the date you actually arrive on base. This means that the chances of you having an empty home to move into upon arriving at the base are slim to none. Most (except for the exceptions that Jenn listed) docs live off base. . .in the nice neighborhoods! (Again, from my experience, military bases are usually in really @*&@& areas of town!)

So, this has made it really hard to actually meet people on base. Most of my friends at our previous assignment were non-military people who lived in our neighborhood, same church, etc. I don't know what the other people here think about this but I have also found it really difficult to blend into the base culture. I made an effort to attend some military spouse meetings and most of the women there treated me as if I was not a "true" military wife. I'm sure the medical spouse groups are different but they didn't have any at our bases.

[DCJenn]

Our friends that are military are friends from residency. That said, my neighborhood has a ton of docs, military and civilian which helps, too. Since we're pretty much inbetween the two military hospitals and about five blocks from most of the downtown hospitals it's a very convenient place for docs.

Jenn

[mommax3]

We hardly knew anyone that lived on post/base during residency. During payback, we knew several non-medical families and one military medical family that lived on base. We were glad that we didn't, because since the COL was so low in north TX, the house we bought was substantially bigger than the house we would have gotten on base. Also, all in-patient care was done at the civilian hospital in town, which was further from base than was the house we bought, so living on base would not have saved DH any time in the middle of the night, either. DH had no desire to be "the OB down the street" and would have been miserable living right smack in the middle of his patients. I was very rarely on base and that was fine with me. We had some military friends through church, but I agree that they didn't think that we were "true" military people......and they may have had a point. The people I got along best with were either military medical folks, or people who had nothing to do with the military OR medicine.

Sally

[Rapunzel]

In regard to Lackland I cannot think of a single radiologist (or any other md for that matter) who lives on the base - or even next to it. As far as I have heard for physicians in the Air Force, the only time you might live on base is if you are overseas. Otherwise, AF docs don't tend to live on base.

Thanks for the information ladies, I really appreciate your honesty. My DH wants to live off-post so you (and the wait lists!) have sealed the deal!

Anne -
Is your husband going into his active duty time this summer?

Looking back over your old posts, I see that he is starting payback time in 2007! Do you know when you are supposed to get your orders?

No, we don't. We are still waiting for the list to rank the different places. Then I think in March we might find out where we will be going but I don't know when we will get our orders. I think it is about 6 weeks before you start but that is only what I have heard. He has to do OBC still so it might be awhile for our orders. Are you starting active duty this summer too?

Is your husband Army or AF?

We are already in the active duty phase. We've completed 2 years. . .are doing a fellowship this year. . .and then on to the final 2 years starting this summer. I'm just waiting (very impatiently!!) to find out for sure where we are headed this summer.

Don't put too much emphasis on the rankings list. They sent us to what was actually #18 out of 20 on our list for the first 2 years.

Don't put too much emphasis on the rankings list

Couldn't agree more. They sent us somewhere that wasn't even on our list.

[DCJenn]

I know of only two people who got something on their lists- one Army, one AF.

Jenn

[Rapunzel]

I know of only two people who got something on their lists- one Army, one AF.

Jenn

We did get the place we wanted (the first place to be exact). There were reasons why this happened - but they are kind of detailed and complicated....