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Navy HSCP


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1 hour ago, Almortega said:

I currently have my packet completed for the Navy HPSP and I had to put together a "dream" list of base locations. Do they actually take this list in to consideration or is this just a list they let you make to entice you to apply?

Also is the $20,000 sign on bonus worth it to spend a 4 year commitment or should I just not take the 20,000 and just do the 3 year obligation?  

if something on your list is available and not being requested by someone with more time in than you, then yes. Some people get to go to their first choice. I didn't. Nothing on my list was apart of my choices of where I was actually able to go. 

That's up to you if it's worth it and you can't really be sure of that until it's done. Hmmm....I might have taken 20k for one year. Wasn't an option with HSCP. They offered me a retention bonus of 20k per year if I signed up for 4 more years at the end of my obligation. I declined.

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On ‎3‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 9:40 PM, LT_Oneal_PAC said:

It was absolutely worth it for me to join and do it for one tour with 2 deployments. Everyone has to make that decision themselves though.

Oneal,

Just out of curiosity if you don't mind me asking, where were you deployed to and how were your duties as a PA different during deployment compared to your duties state side? Also, I saw in your post from 2014 that after graduation from PA school as an HSCP awardee, you would have accrued 64 days leave from the Navy. Did that actually turn out as planned?

Thanks in advance

 

 

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9 hours ago, Lkl1004 said:

Oneal,

Just out of curiosity if you don't mind me asking, where were you deployed to and how were your duties as a PA different during deployment compared to your duties state side? Also, I saw in your post from 2014 that after graduation from PA school as an HSCP awardee, you would have accrued 64 days leave from the Navy. Did that actually turn out as planned?

Thanks in advance

 

 

I deployed with a Marine logistics battalion. I functioned as their primary care and I farmed our to infantry units as we went forward while training foreign nationals. 

Duties changed as I did a lot more training of corpsmen. I ran sick call which was basically urgent care type work. I took call so if someone had a problem in the night and the duty corpsman deemed it worthy of my time, I would wake up and go see them. I planned out medevac/casevacs for when I was going forward making sure we had a plan if someone had a serious trauma or medical illness that needed a higher level of care. When forward I was the primary care for the small team which was mostly diarrhea and URI control. We would have ranges teaching foreign soldiers to shoot or use explosives so I would function as a EMS in case there was an accidental trauma.

yes I got 64 days of leave, which was nice because I was always able to take a week here and there and never worry about it running out and had plenty for terminal when I separated.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am currently going through the process of applying for this program and am still on the fence about whether or not becoming a PA in the Navy is for me so I have a few questions.

1. What is the normal day as a PA in the Naval hospitals?

2. I was told I would have a duty/job besides just being a PA on base or in the hospital, can you give an example or explain what this duty would be?

3. In 2018, is there still a very high chance of deploying in my 3 years in the Navy (after finishing my schooling) ?

4. Are there any other duties I would have as an officer outside of the hospital, such as attending events etc.

5. How is life at a Naval base? Since I won't be living on base or on a ship, are there things to do on base to socialize or meet other people?

6. If I were to deploy, what would I do as a PA deployed? I have read some things but I get mostly a bad sense about it being told I will fall behind on my skills if I am deployed and I will be quite bored.

7. I was told there is an extremely low chance of working in a Naval Hospital overseas such as somewhere in Europe, is this true or is it possible for me to be stationed there?

8. I really want to travel when I am young and out of college, does being in the Navy make it hard to travel home or travel across the country or to other countries?

Thank you for taking your time to read and listen!

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1 hour ago, Ally15 said:

I am currently going through the process of applying for this program and am still on the fence about whether or not becoming a PA in the Navy is for me so I have a few questions.

1. What is the normal day as a PA in the Naval hospitals?

2. I was told I would have a duty/job besides just being a PA on base or in the hospital, can you give an example or explain what this duty would be?

3. In 2018, is there still a very high chance of deploying in my 3 years in the Navy (after finishing my schooling) ?

4. Are there any other duties I would have as an officer outside of the hospital, such as attending events etc.

5. How is life at a Naval base? Since I won't be living on base or on a ship, are there things to do on base to socialize or meet other people?

6. If I were to deploy, what would I do as a PA deployed? I have read some things but I get mostly a bad sense about it being told I will fall behind on my skills if I am deployed and I will be quite bored.

7. I was told there is an extremely low chance of working in a Naval Hospital overseas such as somewhere in Europe, is this true or is it possible for me to be stationed there?

8. I really want to travel when I am young and out of college, does being in the Navy make it hard to travel home or travel across the country or to other countries?

Thank you for taking your time to read and listen!

1. The same as any other PA in that specialty, which will likely be FM

2. I briefly had Officer of the Day duties which required me to be the go to guy for all problems in the hospital for 24 hours once per month. Mostly I did nothing but catch up on charts, watched movies, and played video games. Often yelled at about something stupid and completely out of my control, but my field of Fs was barren by the time I was doing this after my deployment. #salty. This was a brief time this lasted before they scrapped it. Most places don’t have clinicians doing Bs  jobs like this. I did have an initial a collateral as the Emergency Management Coordinator for FM during my first year. I organized and coordinated the FM response to crisis response, which mainly came in the form of drills.

 

3. You WILL deploy.

4. Attending events as a duty? Not sure what you mean, but I’m guessing no. Your job is to keep your butt in the exam room, see patients, and make sure the “next available appointment” report to the CO is less than 24 hours. You can join the wardroom for social events and responsibilities there and you can go brown nose all you want and rub shoulders with captains. Personally avoided it like the plague. 

5. Living on base IMO was the best. I didn’t the first 2 years, but did the 3rd. Very sorry I didn’t do it the whole time.

6. Typically you see sick call and maintain the preventive med for everyone. My personal experience also had me as range medical officer acting as a EMS of sorts in foreign countries, planned casualty evacuations, and trained corpsmen, taught combat lifesaver to marines, and taught combat casualty care to host nation soldiers. It is boring, though I had a few very cool cases, and you will have mild skill atrophy that improves after a few months back. Now being operational for years, skill atrophy might be worse.

7. If you want to live over seas you definitely can! As long as you’re picking Japan or Guam. Very unlikely to get EU, but I’ve seen it happen.

8. I would say hard, but certainly more difficult as the leave process is more difficult than telling a civilian employer you are taking vacation. Plus you have to perform a very brief course on travel safety and apply for a request to travel overseas. Generally approved, but just another step.

Edited by LT_Oneal_PAC
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  • 6 months later...
On 6/28/2018 at 3:24 PM, LT_Oneal_PAC said:

1. The same as any other PA in that specialty, which will likely be FM

2. I briefly had Officer of the Day duties which required me to be the go to guy for all problems in the hospital for 24 hours once per month. Mostly I did nothing but catch up on charts, watched movies, and played video games. Often yelled at about something stupid and completely out of my control, but my field of Fs was barren by the time I was doing this after my deployment. #salty. This was a brief time this lasted before they scrapped it. Most places don’t have clinicians doing Bs  jobs like this. I did have an initial a collateral as the Emergency Management Coordinator for FM during my first year. I organized and coordinated the FM response to crisis response, which mainly came in the form of drills.

 

3. You WILL deploy.

4. Attending events as a duty? Not sure what you mean, but I’m guessing no. Your job is to keep your butt in the exam room, see patients, and make sure the “next available appointment” report to the CO is less than 24 hours. You can join the wardroom for social events and responsibilities there and you can go brown nose all you want and rub shoulders with captains. Personally avoided it like the plague. 

5. Living on base IMO was the best. I didn’t the first 2 years, but did the 3rd. Very sorry I didn’t do it the whole time.

6. Typically you see sick call and maintain the preventive med for everyone. My personal experience also had me as range medical officer acting as a EMS of sorts in foreign countries, planned casualty evacuations, and trained corpsmen, taught combat lifesaver to marines, and taught combat casualty care to host nation soldiers. It is boring, though I had a few very cool cases, and you will have mild skill atrophy that improves after a few months back. Now being operational for years, skill atrophy might be worse.

7. If you want to live over seas you definitely can! As long as you’re picking Japan or Guam. Very unlikely to get EU, but I’ve seen it happen.

8. I would say hard, but certainly more difficult as the leave process is more difficult than telling a civilian employer you are taking vacation. Plus you have to perform a very brief course on travel safety and apply for a request to travel overseas. Generally approved, but just another step.

O’Neal, I know you keep saying you will deploy but my preceptor did the hpsp through the navy and was never deployed (she was a naval PA from 2014-2017)  I have just received the hpsp through the navy and was told it would be unlikely for me to deploy as all slots are being filled currently on a volunteer basis and they try to not deploy PAs with little experience. Same goes for working on ships as usually there is only one to two providers so they really discourage new PAs from working on naval ships. 

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17 hours ago, Almortega said:

O’Neal, I know you keep saying you will deploy but my preceptor did the hpsp through the navy and was never deployed (she was a naval PA from 2014-2017)  I have just received the hpsp through the navy and was told it would be unlikely for me to deploy as all slots are being filled currently on a volunteer basis and they try to not deploy PAs with little experience. Same goes for working on ships as usually there is only one to two providers so they really discourage new PAs from working on naval ships. 

I’ve known all but one PA to deploy in their first three years. Granted all my friends but 3 were with marines, but those three were taken from blue side and deployed with marines too. People on naval bases may or may not deploy. If they do it will likely be with marines. Last year a friend of mine went straight operational with 3rd marines without any prior military or healthcare background. Sorry, but if you join, expect to be deployed in your first tour. Don’t tell people otherwise or you’ll have some pissed sailors and doing them a disservice.

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43 minutes ago, LT_Oneal_PAC said:

I’ve known all but one PA to deploy in their first three years. Granted all my friends but 3 were with marines, but those three were taken from blue side and deployed with marines too. People on naval bases may or may not deploy. If they do it will likely be with marines. Last year a friend of mine went straight operational with 3rd marines without any prior military or healthcare background. Sorry, but if you join, expect to be deployed in your first tour. Don’t tell people otherwise or you’ll have some pissed sailors and doing them a disservice.

Were they HPSP? Because I was told this after I signed everything so it wasn’t like I was being deceived. The PA I know who did hpsp was also not deployed, it might be different if you are under this scholarship and might make sense since only a couple of PA students get it every year. Also I just received the authorized navy payment list and the navy actually does pay for the PANCE but again I can only speak for HPSP and not other scholarships. I have no problem with deployment but I’m honestly just relaying my experience and what I’ve been told. It also makes sense because there isn’t really a need right now for a bunch of medical personnel to be deployed especially when they need primary care at US bases. 

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5 hours ago, Almortega said:

Were they HPSP? Because I was told this after I signed everything so it wasn’t like I was being deceived. The PA I know who did hpsp was also not deployed, it might be different if you are under this scholarship and might make sense since only a couple of PA students get it every year. Also I just received the authorized navy payment list and the navy actually does pay for the PANCE but again I can only speak for HPSP and not other scholarships. I have no problem with deployment but I’m honestly just relaying my experience and what I’ve been told. It also makes sense because there isn’t really a need right now for a bunch of medical personnel to be deployed especially when they need primary care at US bases. 

Most I knew were HPSP or direct commissions as that was more common the years prior. I applied the first year they stopped offering HPSP. 

It has more to do with your station. If you’re blue side at a marine base, your platform will be med battalion, which is always short handed for either taskers (45 day “deployment”) or need a body for MAGTF missions to train with host nations. Few go on what people consider real deployments to Iraq or A-stan. I actually deployed twice in 3 years from family medicine. 

Your primary care dept will never want to let you go and they will fight, as mine did, but they always lose to operational needs. 

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11 hours ago, LT_Oneal_PAC said:

Most I knew were HPSP or direct commissions as that was more common the years prior. I applied the first year they stopped offering HPSP. 

It has more to do with your station. If you’re blue side at a marine base, your platform will be med battalion, which is always short handed for either taskers (45 day “deployment”) or need a body for MAGTF missions to train with host nations. Few go on what people consider real deployments to Iraq or A-stan. I actually deployed twice in 3 years from family medicine. 

Your primary care dept will never want to let you go and they will fight, as mine did, but they always lose to operational needs. 

Oh okay, I think I was referring to what many call real deployments. 

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  • 8 months later...
On 6/4/2018 at 11:08 PM, LT_Oneal_PAC said:

I deployed with a Marine logistics battalion. I functioned as their primary care and I farmed our to infantry units as we went forward while training foreign nationals.

O'neal, are you able to comment on which specific countries you were deployed to when you were working as a primary care provider for a Marine logistics battalion?

I've been in the HSCP since I started my PA program in 2018 and am currently six months out from graduation. The billets available to PA's that are opening next Spring and Summer (around the time I graduate and will complete ODS) lists many operational billets with Marine units. I'd like to get a billet on the East coast if they let me. Just wondering which potential countries I'd could be deployed to.

 

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27 minutes ago, donricardo said:

O'neal, are you able to comment on which specific countries you were deployed to when you were working as a primary care provider for a Marine logistics battalion?

I've been in the HSCP since I started my PA program in 2018 and am currently six months out from graduation. The billets available to PA's that are opening next Spring and Summer (around the time I graduate and will complete ODS) lists many operational billets with Marine units. I'd like to get a billet on the East coast if they let me. Just wondering which potential countries I'd could be deployed to.

 

If you go to lejeune, likely would get tapped for the SP-MAGTF theater security cooperation. I went to Italy and multiple African countries. Could go to Spain or Romania. Camp Pendleton PAs often get tapped for the same MAGTF but for Southeast Asia/Australia. I also went on the USNS Comfort, which possible on the East coast, but rare. Usually it’s high on people’s list, so higher ranks go on the Continuing Promise mission. I only got to go because of the crisis in Puerto Rico with only 6 hours notice. I know a couple PAs that went to the Middle East like Kuwait or Jordan from Lejeune, but also less common. I don’t know the current op tempo, so YMMV.

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3 hours ago, donricardo said:

Thank you for the quick reply! What was the usual length of your deployments? Did you receive deployment pay?

Don’t forget to quote me or @ me or I might miss a question.

Almost 10 months (was supposed to be 6) to the SP-MAGTF and 2 months on the Comfort. 

You receive family separation pay after something like 90 days, hazardous duty pay if near any high risk area, hardship pay if you are having to reside in a crap hole, so on. There isn’t “deployment pay,” but yes, you can rack up on a deployment. I got some small amount for sea pay on the comfort, but it’s based on the total time at sea during your entire service. I think at least. Fuzzy on the details. I know it wasn’t much but others were getting more

 

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