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Old 03-01-2012, 21:22   #3
Eagle5US
Quiet Professional
 
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Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Tampa
Posts: 2,536
First- you are not yet a 65D and it is highly frowned upon to represent yourself as such prior to qualification (i.e. your SCREEN NAME). With 16 months left...you have a LONG way to go and school is in no way at the "it's a gimme" stage.

Second- though there are people who skip directly to a Special Forces Unit as a PA, it is highly discouraged in the community to do so. Even for those people who have an 18 Series Enlisted background. We (the Senior PA/SF community) are currently in serious and high level discussion to prevent this practice from continuing.

You are currently in "Basic Training" for medicine. If and when you complete that training, the folks who you "practice on" while you are trying to put into play the things you learned in school should not be folks in a Special Operations Unit.
These soldiers deserve a provider who has already seen hundreds of hours of sick call, had the benefit of learning from physicians and PA's who have been around the block and taught them the ins and outs of MILITARY MEDICINE, tricks of the trade in order to quickly and efficiently diagnose and treat the little things as well as the big ones.
While it is "cool" to be in a Special Forces Unit, the patient population has priority to your experience level. Additionally, you will be teaching, mentoring, and overseeing treatments by the 18D's in the unit. Without the experience of a few years of patient care, they will be at a significant disadvantage with an inexperienced provider such as yourself.

Take a few years to learn your craft, then offer that craft for service.

Medicine is a practice, how you practice makes it an art.
You have to start somewhere, it will be "paint by numbers" long before it becomes "art". SF Guys deserve the art.

A few things to think about.
__________________
Primum non Nocere
"I have hung out in dangerous places a lot over the years, from combat zones to biker bars, and it is the weak, the unaware, or those looking for it, that usually find trouble.

Ain't no one getting out of this world alive. All you can do is try to have some choice in the way you go. Prepare yourself (and your affairs), and when your number is up, die on your feet fighting rather than on your knees. And make the SOBs pay dearly."
The Reaper-3 Sep 04

Last edited by Eagle5US; 03-01-2012 at 21:49.
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