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medicine (2)

Update after First Year

Posted by John Livesey on June 19, 2010 at 5:00pm
Wow... it's been a year already. I suppose Father's Day will henceforth represent a milestone in ways it didn't previously. A year ago, my daughter, Audrey, took her oath of office as an Ensign... the day before Father's Day 2009, she flew off to Newport, RI and Officer Development School. She began her Navy career as a first-year medical student at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda MD. Well, it's been a year filled with ups and downs (more of the former, but not devoid of the latter).

Her experience this year followed a mostly academic calendar, not unfamiliar to her father (I'm an academic professor and researcher). In medical school, the challenging first term course is gross anatomy (with cadaver dissection) and she busted to do well in this hallmark course. She also worked hard and did well in biochemistry (for which USUHS administers a "shelf exam" which is similar to components of the United States Medical Licensing Exam step 1)... you see, graduates from the Hebert School of Medicine at USUHS have to become licensed just like a civilian physician. Due to travel restrictions, she wasn't able to have the Thanksgiving holiday with us in California, but the Fall term ended in mid December so she had two weeks of liberty with us over the Christmas holiday.

Going back to such a challenge after liberty was as difficult for her as it might be for some of your sailors here, even though her challenges revolve around somewhat different content. Not that her duty is devoid of physical challenges as well... she's had to stay in shape as any Navy officer must - in her case with 5am workouts and the semi-annual PRTs. In the spring, her class of about 170 traveled to the Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland for what they term the Antietam roadmarch - six miles of military medicine history and re-enactments that complement some of their classroom studies on the history of medicine.

Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, we traveled to Bethesda to celebrate her "White Coat" ceremony - an event that has become common in medical schools around the country to symbolize students' induction into the study and practice of medicine. We then toured the National Mall in DC, including some of the Smithsonian museums and the WWII memorial, while remembering POWs & MIAs from all our nation's conflicts. More poignant than ever before...

Having now completed her first year's studies, she has an interesting summer coming up. After a week's training (this year at Andrews Air Force Base on the other side of Washington DC) and two weeks of liberty, she'll be a part of Operation Kerkesner [video], a training operation that applies some of the skills learned in her military medicine coursework during the first year (EMT-like treatments, along with practice in field operations including chemical/biological warfare protective gear). Following Kerkesner, she'll be a "patient" at Operation Bushmaster, an exercise for fourth-year students who set up and operate a field hospital in the woods near Fort Indiantown Gap, PA. I say "patient" because the first year students are the simulated battlefield casualties (made to look as realistic as possible with expert moulage)... I'm wondering what "injury" she'll encounter. She then has a two-week clerkship with the Marines at Camp Lejeune, NC before another brief liberty and the start of her second year's coursework.

Throughout this year, I've been so proud of Audrey's dedication and service, as I'm sure all Dads here are proud of your sailors' service to our country. My thanks to them and to you this Fathers Day!

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"In Between"

Posted by John Livesey on May 24, 2009 at 12:18pm
My thanks to the Admins (EG & Paul) for the warm welcome here at NavyDads. I found the site when my wife noticed a magazine ad for navyformoms.com and signed up. Like EG, I figured there had to be a corresponding site for the other gender, and am grateful that EG (and others) have put so much effort into making what looks to be a great site.I titled this post "In Between" because my daughter is in a slightly different situation than many of your sons and daughters. You might think of the joining process as binary - you're either in the military or you're not - and at one level that may be true, but there are other levels to consider. I put in "my child is thinking about joining" because she's not yet taken the oath, but yet she is committed.Audrey has accepted a place in the Class of 2013 at the Hebert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD. As a part of this acceptance (of her by the school and her acceptance of a place in the program), she will be commissioned as an Ensign (O-1) in the US Navy in a few weeks. She is to report to Newport RI on June 21 and will complete Office Development School (ODS) run by the Navy Officer Training Command. Thus, she won't be going to Great Lakes as many of your sons & daughters do. After ODS, she is to report to the USU campus on August 3 for training prior to the start of her MS1 year.Her mother and I are still trying to figure out all this... I did not serve in the military (though looking back on my history, it would have done me a lot of good to go that route as some point in my development), so I know little about the culture and traditions of the Navy. I have good friends who both served in the Navy - a flight surgeon and a carrier pilot - but in completely different eras, so I'm grateful for this site to help with some of the acronyms and procedures.Audrey has had an ongoing interest in serving in the Navy since high school. She applied to the Naval Academy and actually received the nomination of our congressman for entrance, but didn't gain admission (she completed a B.S. in biochemistry at CalPoly San Luis Obispo last year). She has spent the intervening year as an emergency medical technician (driving an ambulance) in her community and applying to medical schools. She turned down admission to three other medical schools (Drexel, Temple, and Univ of Southern California) to attend USUHS. The teamwork and camaraderie of the military is very important to her and fits well with both her commitment to serve and her own learning and leadership style. She is excited to begin this adventure (and is impatiently awaiting her commissioning paperwork). Her mother and I are also excited (and truth-to-tell, a bit apprehensive) and very proud (you can tell that by the tome of this post [!]) of her achievement and her choice to pursue her medical training in the US Navy.
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