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And Max would like to know how your integration back into
civilian life went Was your army experience seen as
beneficial or not.
That's also a really good question, Max.
Look, I will have to say undoubtedly that my military
experience was seen as beneficial.
A lot of my civilian colleagues are quite envious
of the experiences that I've had as a military doctor both
on deployment and here in Australia.
On top of that, I think that it certainly added to my
confidence, my ability to team lead, my ability to work in
multi-disciplinary environments.
So for all those reasons, it's certainly been a massive
benefit to me.
In terms of personally, how the integration went, there's
certainly some tough things.
I had a phenomenal group of friends.
I have built bonds that it's really hard to experience in
the civilian life.
Being on deployment with the guys, being on exercise with
the guys in all sorts of extreme environments,
situations, leaving that team even though I'm able to touch
base and still maintain a personal contact with a lot of
them now was very difficult.
But the nice thing with the reserves is I've being able to
maintain my contact with defence and still feel very
much involved with the organisation.
Jordan asks he or she is thinking of going into health
care with any of the services and has heard that medicine is
really difficult, and how do you manage all the aspects of
your life with such a large workload when studying?
Jordan, I think medicine is one of those careers where
there is always a pressure to balance your professional life
with your personal life, and that's really hard.
What I would say is that coming in under the defence
university sponsorship programme actually takes off a
lot of those pressures.
So if you're coming in to study or you're already
studying, again, I'd really go back and engage with
recruiting because the financial support, the
practical support, the peer support from having military
doctors mentoring you all really help you to balance
your work load with your personal load.
And not having to worry about going off and having a
part-time job or a casual job to help pay your way when
you're studying really, really helps.
And for me, I took it on in my last two years of my programme
during my clinical years, and it just enabled me to really
focus on my clinical work, get the most out of that
experience, and it really enriched my studying life.
Post that, being a full-time medical officer, as I've said,
you've got the options of things like your defence
assistant study schemes and other such financial support.
And often the unit will give you time to study, sit exams.
So again, being in the military can often help
alleviate some of those professional workload and
personal pressures.
Max asks us, how did you find your ongoing medical training
after you completed your PGY1, PGY2 using civilian hospitals?
Was it difficult to get credit for your medical training
within the Army?
Max, that's a really good question.
A lot of people see coming into full-time, military
service as a medical officer as a set back in their medical
career because they watch their colleagues advance
through their training programmes while they're
training often only gets credited as a part time, so
your training time sort of only occurs by half.
What I would say, and this is something that I found from my
personal experience, is you need to take a
broader look at that.
Medicine is about people.
And it's about learning how to interact with people.
It's about being able to engage with people from all
walks of life.
What you'll gain from your military experience in terms
of the confidence, your management skills, your
ability to lead teams, the responsibilities you get which
are far above resident or even registrar time levels within a
hospital because you're often or sometimes the only doctor
say on exercise in a particular region.
It really grows you as a person but also as a doctor.
And look, I came back from my full-time medical time.
Maybe behind in time, my colleagues who had gone
through medicine, but many of them had gone off on holidays
and had done other things, so really weren't that much
further ahead.
But I feel that I had gained so much and certainly as I
mentioned before, they look with great envy upon some of
the things I've done.
I've done 10 cricoid airways, which many of my consultant
emergency physicians in my hospital have never done.
I've done five thoracotomies, which again, many of my fellow
registrars have never done.
I've dealt with all manners of interesting tropical illnesses
and that sort of stuff.
So yes, the time may not be credited towards training, but
the experience will always benefit you as a doctor.
So I think if you take that broader view, then the
military certainly adds just an entire another dimension to
your medical life training and experience.
Patricia asks, what difference, if any, is there
between medical office in the Army and the
Air Force and Navy?
Patricia, that's a really good question, and there certainly
are differences.
Obviously, I can really only answer that question from an
Army perspective.
What I really recommend is go back in and look at our
previous live broadcast, which featured a Navy doctor talking
from his experiences and really gave a fantastic
insight into what that was all about, and that's available
through the website.
As an Army doctor, obviously, it's more about
being in the field.
So a Navy doctor will deploy usually on ships.
Air Force will deploy with planes.
So they'll do things like strategic AME, which is fixed
wings and large aircrafts retrieving casualties from
distant places.
In the army, we're really about being on the ground
treating soldiers five forward if we can and maintaining them
in their role and maintaining a real capability.
And that's great being part of the environment.
You really get embraced by the soldiers because of that.
Nowadays, there's definitely more of a tri-service feel,
and I've deployed far forward in the field with Air Force,
Navy, and Army doctors.
So certainly, we're looking at cross skilling and having a
real tri-service capability that can provide whatever
medical service is required whether it's forward, in a
maritime theatre, so on a ship, or whether it's back
here in Australia providing the health care that supports
our deployed troops forward.
And there's some really great specialist roles in that such
as our NCAT teams which are highly trained specialists,
usually intensivists and to anaesthetists, who transport
our really sick patients, and they tend to be Air Force.
Frank said, can you remember your first year in the army?
Was it hard to make friends and fit
in to the Army lifestyle?
Oh, Frank, that as a great question.
Look, I think I was once described as the most civilian
man in uniform.
I certainly, as an individual, I certainly wasn't a natural
fit to the army, and I'll be very upfront about that.
I'm a very free, independent thinker as many doctors are,
and I suppose originally, I found the rules and
regulations of military life seemingly restrictive.
Once I got on to operations and exercises, I realised why
those rules and regulations existed and that they
actually, in fact, helped you to make
decisions to achieve outcomes.
The military does encourage you to try and choose
hospitals that are in posted locations, again, help you
settle into that location before you have then settle
into military life.
But I did my internship and residency in Perth and did my
first year in military in Sydney.
So certainly, you have a lot of flexibility with that.
Nicola asks, how are your duties in Australia different
to your duties when you're deployed?
Nicola, again, there is sort of two parts to that question
in answering it.
Your general duties in terms of forming that function as a
general practitioner for the troops, so that's been there
to look at the sporting injuries, looking at
infections, even dealing with stress and anxiety sort of
mental health issues that come up.
And that happens both in Australia just through a
normal life and also obviously on deployment, those sort of
roles are exactly the same both in Australia and
replicated in the deployed setting.
Where things get interesting in deployed setting is you
obviously don't have, I mean, for example, when I took when
I went with the infantry battalion from Townsville over
in Afghanistan, I didn't have Townsville Hospital down the
road that we could just send patients who needed their
appendix taken out, had broken their leg and needed an
orthopaedic opinion.
So suddenly, all those functions were fulfilled
within that deployed environment.
I stood up to fulfil some of those, so I was manning one of
the trauma base there quite often, so dealing with trauma
casualties.
But then I also had surgeons, anaesthetists there to support
me and provide that extra capability.
And then when we had patients that we couldn't fulfil those
sort of health care requirements, we were able to
evacuate then out of country so that they could have those
health care needs met.
So your duties really change depending on the deployment.
And really, it's going to come down to where you're going,
what the requirements are.
Blake asks, do you work in conjunction with any foreign
medical offices when posted overseas?
Absolutely, Blake.
I think that's been one of the best things about--
so many great things about my time with the military.
But getting to work alongside foreign militaries and our
coalition partners and the different medical systems and
learn from that.
What really stands out for me was working in the role
through hospital in Afghanistan, which at the time
when I was there, and things have changed things since, was
Dutch-led medical facility.
And I worked alongside their traumatologist, which is a
truly specialised trauma surgeon something that we
don't really have here in Australia.
We certainly have general surgeons, vascular surgeons,
orthopaedic surgeons who have an interest or a sub
specialisation within trauma, but we don't have a full-on
traumatologist.
And these guys were dynamic.
There was no body cavity they couldn't open and fix.
And they also had expertise in managing patients from an ICU,
so intensive care perspective, which is very different from
our surgeons here in Australia who don't usually manage and
run the ICU environment.
So the opportunity to work with people like that was
amazing, and I feel the same way about the Americans I
worked alongside, the Germans I worked alongside, the
British doctor's I've worked alongside.
It's just been awesome.
And I've learned so much from each of them and I'm just
having that different cultural and experiential viewpoint
that they come to their medicine with has really, I
think, enriched and broadened my medical perspective.
And at times, I suggest treatments in my hospital here
in Australia that other people have never even heard of.
And they're often amazed when they work or when they do the
research and oh, there's actually
evidence to support that.
So look, it's the great part about being a medical officer
in the military is you get a truly international medical
experience.
Lisa asks, how does the pay as a medical officer compare to
that as a civilian doctor?
That's a great question, Lisa.
This one comes up all the time.
The truth is, our pay as medical offices is often
better than our civilian counterparts as a full-time
medical officer.
Often, some people you'll hear say that it doesn't compare,
but they're comparing consultant wages or
fully-graduated GP sort of wages.
Whereas when you come on, you're usually PGY3, PGY4, so
you're talking about comparing resident or registrar wages
with a medical officer.
Medical officers get paid favourably compared to most
senior registrars of most training specialties and
certainly that includes the GP field maybe excluding people
working remotely or doing a lot of after hours may get
paid better.
But on top of your take-home pay, you get rent assistance,
you get study assistance, you get movement allowances, you
get uniform allowances.
Every time you deploy, you get deployment allowances.
So the financial package that's offered
by defence is fantastic.
And really, on a personal level, just set me up
fantastically financially from a very young age.
And I can say that it's a great package.
Tom said, do you get much free time?
Tom, you actually get more free time as a full-time
medical officer, I think, than as a civilian doctor.
Your day, when you're back home in Australia, tends to be
with the rest of the military day, which is a 7:00
till 4:00 work day.
Within that time, you get time allocated to go do PT, to do
personal administration, and then also to treat patients.
And all the patients go home at 4 o'clock, which is very
different, as you know, in the civilian setting where they'll
keep coming through the doors.
If you're an emergency doctor like myself, 1:00, 2:00 AM in
the morning and they're still lining up.
So in a lot of ways, you actually get a lot more free
time, and certainly, your holidays are fantastic.
I had one or two, three-month holidays where I was able to
go overseas, have some great experiences while I was a
full-time medical doctor.
So they're very good at compensating you for that lost
time for when you're on exercises and deployment with
extra holidays and leave.
It's all factored in.
And certainly, that was one of the really big benefits of
military life, full-time military life.
Lisa also asks, in your experience, do Army doctors
get deployed as much or more compared to other services?
Lisa, this is a really tough one.
In my experience, most of the operations that we've
currently been engaged in have been more army led and
therefore, yes, there's probably been more Army
doctors involved.
But things change all the time.
Navy's got some really exciting years ahead with the
LHDs coming online.
And the capability to put one of these maritime platforms
with surgeries and resuscitation bays, with
helicopters to retrieve patients, with water-loading
docks to be able to do water-to-water at-sea patient
transfer in sea state four or even five is really going to
open up our humanitarian capabilities.
And I suspect you're going to see Navy getting really
involved in both humanitarian and peacekeeping roles in our
Pacific region in the near future.
Air Force with their air capabilities, again, they
responded to the New Zealand earthquakes.
Yeah, they have an ability to reach out and touch our
civilians, and our coalition partners and our allies
anywhere in the world with the fantastic air
frames that we have.
And so Air Force doctors and Navy doctors have amazing
deployment opportunities.
And often, you'll find them deploying alongside you in an
army base, in the Army hospital, in Army
resuscitation bay.
So I think purple when you think deployments, and look,
the opportunities are endless regardless of which
force you go for.