Partial DITY moves

[mommax3]

This may be old news for some of you, but I just found out an interesting tidbit of news that may come in handy for someone sometime......

As many of you know, the ONLY thing that will keep you from getting out of the military when you have paid back your time (unless you sign up for more! ) is the dreaded STOP LOSS, which is enacted during times of war or times of extreme shortage in a particular specialty. Right now in the Air Force, the specialties that are most likely to deploy for wartime scenarios are under stop loss (family practice, general surgery, ER, and orthopedic surgery). Some of the people we know here are in these specialties and are scheduled to get out this summer. They are supposed to start fellowships or have signed contracts for civilian jobs. By and large, they have managed to avoid stop loss by doing a partial DITY move before stop loss was enacted -- the reasoning is that since the military has already reimbursed them for their partial DITY move, they have money invested in the move and thus will go ahead and let them out rather than paying more money to move their stuff back to their duty station.

Most of these people didn't know for sure where they were going, so they just moved some of their stuff to their parents' or in laws' -- anywhere, just so they could have a way to get released even in the midst of stop loss. There is one guy who is from Tulsa and has signed a civilian contract to work in Hawaii -- he didn't do a partial DITY move and now he is stuck for the duration, and may even be deployed to boot.

So just FYI! You can bet we will be taking a load of junk to one of our parents' houses in about a year and a half!


Sally

[DCJenn]

Sally-

Thanks for the tip- I'll be passing it along to our friend who is supposedly starting his residency in psych after enduring 4 years as an AF GMO! (In Internal Medicine to boot- needless to say he's a wee bit bitter)

Jenn

[Rapunzel]

Woa! I didn't know you could do this! Thanks for the info! BTW - not that my husband is getting out any time soon, but are radiologists included in the stop loss right now? Just curious. I have two other q's about stop/loss: 1)does it apply even to those who are eligable for retirement (ie "career military") and 2)has anyone (ie physicians) ever challenged it in court (for reimbursement of the civilian salary they would be losing as well as being generally unconstitutional - ie conscripting doctors into the military without a draft being approved by Congress)? Again, just curious.

[mommax3]

I don't think radiologists are included in stop loss right now. Yes, it does apply to those eligible for retirement. I don't know if anyone has ever challenged it in court -- it doesn't happen that often, but no one anticipated that we would be at war now, so the military has not trained enough physicians in key specialties to both deploy and keep at home to take care of dependents. The dependents around here are getting awful care due to the deployments, despite assurances to the contrary. Civilian docs don't get reimbursed enough by Tricare to be willing to take care of military dependents, which is what is supposed to be happening right now since our ER and OR have closed.

BTW, stop loss applies to anyone in the military, not just docs. Everyone was under stop loss after 9-11, now it is just selective. Some pilots are probably under it, I am not really sure.

Sally

[DCJenn]

The Stop-Loss most definitely affects those who are retiring, and deployment is happening to people at all levels of training. We know of at least one person who had a civilian job lined up who can't take it, one person who was supposed to start a fellowship in July who has been deployed, one who was supposed to start a residency in July who may be stuck in Korea for another year.

As for challenging in court- they're not civilians so the only avenue would be through the military court system. and really, you know what you're getting in to when you agree to let Uncle Sam pay for your education. There were a whole bunch of hysterical people after 9-11, afraid that they were going to be deployed- thinking that they were owed something and in reality- the miltary owes us nothing.

I know that there have been several pediatricians deployed recently. Mostly as backfill to Germany but if you think about it, how old are our soldiers and airmen? My husband has also said that if things get really bed, the OB/GYNs can go becuase of their surgical experience.

So, the bottom line is, let's hope we get out of there as quickly as possible with a minimal loss of life.

Jenn

[mommax3]

One of Travis' residency classmates (OB/GYN) just went to Kuwait, but he is Army, not Air Force, so we are hoping to be spared that horror.

Sally

[Rapunzel]

Thanks for the info! I always appreciate the fact that I can get some good, solid answers on the medical part of the military from you guys!

[DCJenn]

Hello again-

In related news, the Army is now taking volunteers to fill Ft. Polk as they are the next to get wholely activated and sent over. They're even considering taking 3rd year residents if they volunter to both backfill Polk and to continue to backfill Germany.

One of my husband's med school and residency buddies was assigned to Polk, so I know he and his wife are freaking out.

Just to keep everyone up to date-

Jenn

So let me get this straight! They military can deploy you and take you out of medical school?! What would you be doing in the military? My husband is an HPSP and in his first year. We were told over and over that he could not be taken out of school. Is this a big lie? Because if it is true I am ready to go find a lawyer! Also, if you girls had it all to do over do you think you husbands would have done military, taking everything in consideration?
Lauren Clark

[mommax3]

Lauren,

I believe that it is HIGHLY unlikely that your husband could be deployed before finishing medical school, so you can rest easy for a while. He is of no good to them until he has that M.D. degree.

If we had to do it over, we would not have taken the military route -- however, we were able to have our oldest son when we did because we did choose that route, so it is hard for me to imagine another path. We have talked about it a lot, though, and if we were doing it over, we would either borrow the money or explore other options, such as state scholarships that pay tuition if you agree to practice primary care (which OB/GYN is considered) in an underserved area for a specific number of years. Because the military moved us so far from our families and support systems, we ended up borrowing lots of money during residency for trips home, (he only could take a week at a time, and if we drove home, we spent most of our vacation in the car, so we flew) as well as to fill the gaps when things went wrong, since we didn't know anyone (for a couple of years) we could ask to help us -- for example, if one of our cars broke down, we had to rent one while the other one was being fixed, because the logistics were just impossible. So we have debt, even though we didn't borrow anything for medical school. Now, during our payback, we are earning HALF of the average salary for his specialty. Granted, we get some tax breaks that we won't in the civilian world, but still, that is a lot of money to not be getting for four years.

We haven't been civilian yet, so I don't know the downside of it, but I am sure there is one! We made the best choice we knew to make when we chose to do HPSP, and we did hear some people say not to do it, but we were comfortable with it at the time, and we have tried to make the best of things since then. I think we might do things differently if we could go back in time, but mostly I am just thankful that it is BEHIND us!

BTW, this is for Rapunzel -- my husband says that radiologists deploy fairly frequently, as well as the other specialties I mentioned earlier in the thread. But I don't know about interventional radiology -- that is what your husband is doing, right? Will he do a fellowship for that? Generally, the more you specialize, (except in some surgical sub-specialties) the safer you will be from deployment to war-type actions, but every specialty is vulnerable to deploy in order to backfill (fill gaps) at other bases that have shortages.

Sally

[DCJenn]

No- they won't typically take medical students- my third years, I mean third year residents who haven't finished yet.

Jenn

PS- Military medicine has it's pluses and minuses like everything else. We wouldn't have done it any other way- my husband has written in stone that he will never practice medicine as a civilian (unless a whole lot of things change).

[Rapunzel]

Oh, good grief, Sally! Rads deploys frequently!?! Oh boy, wait until I tell my husband that!