Rejoining in the Res F during medical residency

[dab]

Hello, I started anesthesia residency and I was thinking about rejoining in the Res F. I was trained as infantry officer, but I’m only interested in doing something medicine related. Is it possible to join as an in-training specialist doctor while I finish residency? Otherwise, I was thinking about rejoining as an NCM to do Medical Assistant (I assume a PLAR could be done?)

Any thoughts?

 

[dapaterson]

Talk to the local field ambulance. Once their jaws get up off the floor, I suspect they'll want to bring you in.

 

[brihard]

Paging @Staff Weenie

 

[Staff Weenie]

Sorry, everyone has to take leave some time, I just got back...

There's a couple of issues here:

- There's a great reluctance at the moment to bring on Dr until they have an unrestricted license. I've been pushing back on this for a couple of years with no success. We used to have R55U in the Res F - essentially med students. That ended many years ago, and they do not want to bring it back.

- Res F Field Ambulances do not have establishment positions for Specialists. All of our General Duty Medical Officer positions are for Family Medicine, though I do wonder if Emerg would be a better fit for Role 1-2 units.

- Even if we were allowed to bring a Med Spec on board, we are not funded in the buckets of gold-pressed latinum that it would take to cover their pay.

- There is an option once you have an unrestricted license - 1 Canadian Field Hospital Det Ottawa - it is a 'virtual unit', a Primary Reserve List that does hold Med Spec personnel. From there, you can request to affiliate with the nearest Res Fd Amb (if you tell me where you are, I can let you know the nearest unit). There's three levels of affiliation, and each case requires an agreement between 1 Cdn Fd Hosp Det Ottawa and the CO of the Res Fd Amb regarding who will cover what admin, training and pay.

- Coming back as a Combat Medic (new occupation) NCM could be an option, and a PLAR could write off some training depending on when you previously released, and what courses you had completed. However, I suspect that you would still need to take parts, if not all, of the RQ3 and RQ4 Combat Medic courses. We are still running RQ3&4 Medical Assistant courses this summer, and then changing to Combat Medic next summer. The only issue with this is the time availability for you. I have lost far too many Medical Assistants from my unit over the last few years as they hit their insanely busy residency period, and can no longer commit to the training and parading requirements. I'm always happy to offer Exempt Drill & Training, but that only goes so far. Eventually they release, and the CAF loses another potential Doctor.

I hope this helps, and I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have.

 

[medicineman]

Hello, I started anesthesia residency and I was thinking about rejoining in the Res F. I was trained as infantry officer, but I’m only interested in doing something medicine related. Is it possible to join as an in-training specialist doctor while I finish residency? Otherwise, I was thinking about rejoining as an NCM to do Medical Assistant (I assume a PLAR could be done?)

Any thoughts?

I just noticed this too - are you doing a Royal College Anaesthesia residency or CCFP +1? If the latter and you've done your CCFP exam, you could probably enroll as a GDMO...however if former, yeah, what Staff Weenie said. I suppose another option would be trying to see if a spot was open in Reg Force, but my guess is they'd rather take you once you've completed residency...