Being part of a team means being part of something bigger than yourself—it is one of the most basic life-lessons. If your work is gratifying, you put forth a bit more effort than you would otherwise, and develop a sense of pride in both your team and your teammates. All of this applies to the military. We are a team and we share a common goal: providing the best possible care to our service members and their families. Our job as orthopedic residents within the military is to make sure we are well trained to succeed in this aim.
There are many differences between Army and civilian residency programs. One of the most drastic differences is the fellowship. While nearly 90% of graduating residents go on to a fellowship in the civilian sector, only approximately one-third of graduating Army residents do so. One reason is the limited number of fellowship positions available for graduating Army residents each year. The available positions change yearly and are based on military needs at that particular time. For example, if you are a 4thyear resident interested in total joint arthroplasty, but there are no openings at major military medical centers (MEDCENs) for a fellowship trained total joint surgeon, there will likely not be a fellowship position available that year. Even if there are fellowship spots available, an Army resident has to go through a rigorous application process in order to secure a fellowship position. The first step is to complete an Army fellowship application, which consists of similar components as a civilian fellowship application including letters of recommendations and a CV. The application is typically completed by mid October in the 4th year of residency and the selection is announced in mid December. The next step is applying for fellowship match. In the meantime, many of us have already started the civilian fellowship application process before we even know whether we were accepted for the Army fellowship.
The decision to complete an Army fellowship also means that, in most cases, you incur an additional 2 years of service obligation. While this may not affect the ability of applicants to get or complete a fellowship, a graduating resident whose service obligation is only 4 years, may not want the extra commitment. They may decide instead to complete a civilian fellowship after gaining invaluable experience as a generalist in the Army. For the graduating resident whose service obligation is only 4 years, they may decide to serve their time and complete a fellowship after gaining invaluable experience as a generalist within the Army.
Regardless of whether an Army resident completes a fellowship, most will be deployed to a combat environment within the first 2 years after graduation. Even if you are a sports medicine fellowship trained surgeon, you are considered an Army orthopedic surgeon first and will be deployed as such. Many military orthopedic surgeons have said that their deployments are some of the best experiences of their lives, both professionally and personally. While we have not had the opportunity to deploy—because as residents we have a non-deployable status—we look forward to having a similar opportunity to care for our wounded service members overseas.
Graduating Army residents have multiple opportunities for placement. Whereas most Army medical facilities act like smaller community hospitals and are typically staffed by generalists and a hand or sports medicine orthopedist if needed, most of the MEDCENs function as large, civilian academic centers and are staffed by fellowship trained specialists. Some of these facilities are quite remote (eg, Landstuhl, Germany), while others are in large metropolitan areas (eg, Washington, DC). During our final year of residency or fellowship, we submit a rank list based on the openings at these different centers worldwide. Then, in February or March, we find out where we will be heading after graduation. This process is very similar to any match process in medicine. Depending on your training, career goals, and type of practice you desire, the Army will try to align your personal goals with its needs. Therefore, everyone can be in the optimal position for success. For those physicians who only owe 4 or 5 years of military service, the locations they serve after graduation will likely be their last in the Army.
Being an orthopedic resident in the Army also provides us with the opportunity to be part of many multi-center research projects. Some of these are strictly within the military (eg, the Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons [SOMOS] and Research Collaborative “Innovative Methods to Preserve Articular Cartilage after Trauma”), whereas others are in collaboration with multiple civilian programs (eg, the Major Extremity Trauma Research Consortium and Fluid Lavage of Open Wounds). SOMOS is also beginning to put together lessons the military has learned from our research and experiences while deployed into a formalized package. This past December marked the first of what should be many Disaster Response Courses. This course, hosted in part by SOMOS, with collaboration from the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), and gave military and civilian orthopedic surgeons alike, the ability to learn some of the lessons the military has learned during its most recent conflicts, and the recent disasters experienced by the civilian world by natural disasters and terrorist acts.