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Many specialties are being sent to the civilian side of things- but the reasons why you will never have the complete outsourcing of military medicine is Ft. Hood, Texas and other large military bases. The very small towns where these very large bases are located could not handle the numbers of people they'd have to see.
However, what is going to happen is that 1) the smaller bases are being closed 2) services are combining programs (i.e. DC medical services will be done at the 'new' Walter Reed which will be a Navy/Army post. San Antonio will be Army/AF) 3) The military will continue to increase in presence in other parts of the world, but in smaller numbers. (There's a new 200 person team of soldiers that are going to Slovakia- it'll be without dependents) They will keep the spouses and dependents on the larger bases.
So, ultimately, they will not need the large numbers of generalists at the smaller bases/posts, those people will be seen by civilians (an additional coordination mightmare so eloquently explained by Sally- which by the way was the exact story of Rick's nephews, except substitute Palmdale, CA for Appalachia) At the larger military hospitals you will continue to have speciality care, particularly for adults. BAMC (San Antonio) is world-reknown for burn care and Walter Reed is for orthopedics and eyes. Whether there will be a need for a child neurologist? who knows. But by the time the military figures itself out, we'll be done. Of course, they're welcome to let us go early....
Jenn
PS- at the moment though, my husband is on-call and is being paged nightly for some very sick military dependents.
However, what is going to happen is that 1) the smaller bases are being closed 2) services are combining programs (i.e. DC medical services will be done at the 'new' Walter Reed which will be a Navy/Army post. San Antonio will be Army/AF) 3) The military will continue to increase in presence in other parts of the world, but in smaller numbers. (There's a new 200 person team of soldiers that are going to Slovakia- it'll be without dependents) They will keep the spouses and dependents on the larger bases.
So, ultimately, they will not need the large numbers of generalists at the smaller bases/posts, those people will be seen by civilians (an additional coordination mightmare so eloquently explained by Sally- which by the way was the exact story of Rick's nephews, except substitute Palmdale, CA for Appalachia) At the larger military hospitals you will continue to have speciality care, particularly for adults. BAMC (San Antonio) is world-reknown for burn care and Walter Reed is for orthopedics and eyes. Whether there will be a need for a child neurologist? who knows. But by the time the military figures itself out, we'll be done. Of course, they're welcome to let us go early....
Jenn
PS- at the moment though, my husband is on-call and is being paged nightly for some very sick military dependents.
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