Backtalk: Medical emergency

[unhappycamper]

Medical emergency
By David R. Welling

The next time you happen upon an Air Force doc, ask this question: Do you think Air Force medicine is growing stronger and more capable as time goes by?

Or ask this one: Compared to the Army or the Navy, do you think today’s Air Force medicine is more or less capable?

Or go to one of our medical centers, such as Malcolm Grow at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and ask where the liver-transplant surgeon’s office can be found. That question will really dumbfound them.

Unless you are talking to a commander, I suspect you will get an earful of information about med centers being reduced to clinics, about vanishing training programs, about young docs switching to the Army or Navy —or simply leaving the military — about low morale, about a truly pathetic state of affairs as compared to our sister services.

Air Force medicine is fast evaporating, gone to Tricare or the Base Closure and Realignment Commission. How did that happen? Who is responsible?


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_backtalk_medical_080114/

[MADem]

1. It's true. The best docs ARE USN or USA. NT