Calling current/former RAF Medical Officers

[Ralph Wiggum]

Gents and ladies,

I'm looking for some down to earth advice for a friend of mine starting medical school this week. She is looking to apply for RAF sponsorship as soon as possible and has asked me for advice. If anyone would be able to share with me some experiences, anonymously or not, I would greatly appreciate it. Such questions have arisen like: is the training as good as the brochures suggest, how frequent are overseas postings.. there seem to be lots of civvie MOs manning the stations over here.. is there any anti-military discrimination against docs who leave the forces and go civil... and if you were in her position now, would you join up?

Any help would really be appreciated, thanks in advance. E-mails would be great if that's better for you!

Ralph

[martinidoc]

Dear Ralph,

My advice would be regretably not to go into medicine on an RAF scholarship at the present time. The problem with the forces medical service is that they are largely unable to undertake high quality specialist training due to the relatively healthy nature of their clientelle. Furthermore the service has suffered from significant underinvestment over a number of years.

I chair a training committee for surgeons, and most of the MOD units are now either sadly depleted, or have moved into NHS hospitals as annexes.

I was in the UAS when I did medicine, so got the benefit of flying, as well as medicine. Regretably medics in the RAF today get few opportunities to fly and many have left the forces to transfer into civilian practice.

Hope this is of some help, but would be interested to hear the views of serving medics