After a two year long hiatus I have once again incorrectly donned my BDUs and headed off for a brief active duty tour with the United States Air Force. Zoom!
Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, is an immense installation occupying a large portion of the surrounding area. If you look at it on a map you may think, "dang, that's a big base." Well, not quite. The area encased by acres of razor wire and blocked off gates is indeed quite large, but it turns out its mostly well watered putting greens and hazardous sand traps. Aside from the hospital it seems that much of the base is offices and golf courses. I can't complain, though, the less personnel there the less likely it is anyone will notice I've almost completely forgotten what I'm doing. And they have the most unbelievable wooden playground I have ever seen. Some day I will make a pilgrimage with my own kids here; it will be glorious.
One of the greatest truths I feel about the military is that it does the best with what it's got. Sometimes this is quite a lot, and sometimes it's not much. In this modern era of ours medical doctors are frequently somewhat hard to come by generally speaking, and this shortage is particularly acute for the armed forces. Few doctors want to undergo further teaching, testing, and training all for a bit less money and with little say on where they get to live only to be yelled at in the end that they're doing it wrong. As a result the military frequently has to go out of its way to limit the extra burden it places on its new recruits and so sends them off to things like Commissioned Officer Training (COT) hoping in one month to teach them everything they need to know about being in the military. The end result is perhaps a few more doctors, but they're all doctors that march crooked and salute funny.
And so with this in mind I returned for another month of the airman's life with a significant degree of anxiety. I was reluctant to leave my hotel room -- more formally known as the Visiting Officers Quarters -- for fear that I was doing something wrong and when I did do so I made sure I moved as efficiently and discretely as possible so as to avoid attracting any attention to myself. Thankfully the hospital, as it is itself composed of mostly high ranking COT medical graduates, was particularly laid back, but even there I was not free. On the first day I got ten demerits for having with me the wrong colored backpack and a week or so later I received a couple more for wearing my hospital ID attached to my BDUs outside the hospital's doors. Aside from these few infractions, however, I was mostly safe and within a few days was once again at ease. I did have one last incident of note, though, involving twice running into the same foreign military officer and not knowing what to do either time. Do you salute? Does he salute? What rank is he anyway? Are those stars? He can't be a general; looks too unimportant to be a general. Why do all these foreign uniforms have so much flare on them? Is he staring at me? Oh god, now what? Stare back? He's not moving. Keep staring. Stare harder. Now look away. And... pass. I still have no idea what exactly I was supposed to do, but after awhile I've learned you get comfortable with that feeling.
Anyways, the Air Force business aside, the residency program was, I felt, not so bad. The hospitals looked fairly nice, free food at the awesome Miami Valley cafeteria, much more attractive nurses than down in San Antonio. What was disturbing on the other hand was the people involved. Although I don't think any of the attendings were bad people per se, many of them seemed to feel obligated to have an uncomfortable, unpleasant working relationship with their residents and interns. The residents seem to have gotten used to this. The interns seem to have become depressed. I honestly felt an air of melancholy while I was in the hospital. The place just seemed unhappy.
My interviews were mostly a huge waste of time. I suppose many of the staff need to get at least a rough idea of my personality, but that's all they got as few questions were asked and each session was mostly a brief conversation and a good series of hand shakes. One of them didn't even ask me any questions aside from how I was liking my rotation. What bothered me, however, was not the general silliness of the interviews with the Air Force folk, but my one interview at Miami Valley. The woman knew nothing about me aside from the limited information on my personal statement which was short and vague in compliance with the military's requested word limit, and yet she chose to ask me, "are you the first doctor in your family?" "What makes for a good attending?" "What do you like about our program?" What do I like about your program?! Uhh, pass? I don't like your program. I wouldn't be applying for your program if I was not limited to it and two others one of which was recently destroyed by a hurricane. How about your cafeteria, that seems pretty nice. Do you actually want to know anything about me? And so our interview went. Thankfully the other fourth year HPSP student I interviewed with felt much the same. If I'm gonna be arrogant and presumptuous at least I can be arrogant and presumptuous with friends.
My interviews aside the rest of my stay was mostly joyous. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS - pronounced "yoo-shuss") students were all for the most part friendly and cordial. Went went about town most weekends, listened into the Sheryl Crow concert (who knew the woman had so many famous songs?), and even visited the much talked about Oregon District (in Ohio Oregon is apparently pronounced "Ore-eh-gone") which consisted mostly of scarcely occupied bars and adult erotica stores. I also made it to the USAF Museum; a surprisingly enjoyable and interesting experience. Also a ridiculously difficult place to take pictures in which, combined with my naturally poor picture taking abilities, produced some pretty crappy photos. Ohio, as a whole, I feel is not a bad place to live. I wouldn't mind coming back the residency program notwithstanding. It's definitely different than San Antonio, though the obesity's the same, but in many ways it's an enjoyable different. We'll see what the Air Force says.
As a final thought, it seemed most streets on base were not named with historical figures, important geographical landmarks, or really anything the least be significant or inspiring. Instead they were things like Evergreen Wood and Doe Brook. If ever tasked with naming the roads on the base I end up at I'm definitely going to be living on Exploding Freedom Avenue.
Oh, and it turns out I do like Infectious Disease after all.
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