Hi, I am new to this board and hope you can help me out. I am trying to put together a crime story and one of the protagonists is Lynda, a medical doctor. Currently I am working on her background: Lynda grew up in a small town in Oregon, but always wanted to move into the city to Portland. So when the time was right, she started studying medicine at OHSU in Portland and later began an internship at a hospital there. But she grew restless again and wanted to help our troops overseas. So she became a combat medic for the US Army. After her training cycle she was deployed somewhere in the middle east. She saw some action there but mostly had to tend to superficial wounds. After several months she returned to the States, where my story then starts. My questions now revolve around the part of being a combat medic. How would a young female doctor approach something like that? What options does she have? How long does she have to sign up for? What if she wants out? Does the time count as an internship or a residency? Thank you for your help!
An MD wouldn't become a medic, she'd be an Army doctor. Medics are more like hyper-trained ambulance paramedics than full doctors.
Unless she never finished her role as MD or only partially fullfilled that role? Not sure in the USA, but maybe that would mean she would be a medic, and not a 'proper' doctor. Just proposing a thought on her background - maybe she never finished and only partially started the MD course, but switched to the military. Afraid I don't know much about USA military in modern times.
Thanks for your thoughts. My goal was to have her finish her studies, become an MD, and then do her stint overseas -- it doesn't have to be as a combat medic. I thought it would be a good idea for her to be a combat medic, but if it doesn't make sense, then she has to be something else. I'll try to find out more about Army doctors. Is there anything else she could be? Something were she can help the troops, but doesn't have to be under obligation to the military for a long time?
You could have her join Doctors Without Borders and end up treating some cut-off soldiers? Not sure if they're allowed to, but it's a possibility.
they're not supposed to, but you know Hippocratic oath and all that, if a soldier is hurt bad they aren't going to just let him die. They tend to treat everyone equally though so they'd have the same reaction to a shot up terrorist
IMO a bigger problem is that she only treated superficial wounds .. I don't know about the USarmy or USMC but in british forces superficial wounds get patched up in the field, they don't call the IRT (what American's call medivac) for wounds that aren't serious. To only be treating superficial wounds she'd have to be in the rear way the fuck away from the front line where they don't get combat casualties
Yeah, going to agree with the Moose on that final point he made. Cause in more recent times, I think medics see all kinds of wounds and not just the superficial while out on deployment. So giving her a more rounded and realistic background during her deployment would mean tending to people who have been blown up, gunshots, and things like that as well. Superficial wounds sounds like something a medic deals with while out on a training exercise, rather than all kinds of things that happen in a war-zone. Just a thought.
especially somewhere like Iraq or Afghanistan where a lot of the contacts are from IEDs and mines - you're going to see a lot of lower leg injuries and they won't be superficial.
useful resource here https://www.amazon.co.uk/COMBAT-MEDIC-soldiers-story-Iraq-ebook/dp/B01FTA9J7K/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535144477&sr=1-1&keywords=combat+medic and here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Battleworn-Memoir-Combat-Medic-Afghanistan-ebook/dp/B07965YXKW/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535144528&sr=1-5&keywords=combat+medic
I am trying to get back to this story and my character Lynda, but I am still undecided about her background story. What is important to me: - She studies medicine. (In my mind she is a medical intern -- she has completed medical school and has a medical degree, but does not yet has a full license to practice medicine unsupervised.) - She becomes restless and wants to help the US armed forces overseas (e.g. the Army) - She joins one of the branches of the US military and attends some form of basic combat training (which is important for her to have later on in the story) - She is deployed somewhere (e.g. Afghanistan -- in my mind not as a soldier, but as someone who is responsible for providing first aid and frontline trauma care on the battlefield) - After her return to the US she looks for a new challenge and quits the military. So the obvious question is: What branch does she join to get some basic military training, get sent overseas, provides first aid and trauma care there, gets back and can quit?
I don't know about the Army or Air Force, but US Marines have Navy corpsmen (medics), and the corpsmen go through (or used to, it's been a few decades) Marine Combat Training, which is a month-long very basic infantry school after boot camp. Not sure about the other branches though. "Quits the military" is a very hard thing to do though, you either do the term you signed up for, four or six years most likely for someone like that, and get your honorable discharge, get wounded to the point where you can no longer perform your duties, or do something bad and get kicked out. One doesn't simply resign from military service, at least not early on in life.
Studying medicine does not mean that you are only going to be a doctor/nurse.... You could study medicine to be in research, surgery, psychology... To be in combat they learn basic EMT skills. I'm not sure that you complete medical school and have a degree without going through an internship.
That's more or less correct. Corpsmen frequently end up IAD with Marine detachments, and they were some of the hardassest mf'ers I ever knew. When I was in, though, there was still a firm restriction against women going into active combat roles, which I'm almost 98% certain being a medic for a Marine detachment would count as. I heard in passing that they've lifted that restriction in the last few years, or were talking about it, but I don't run in those circles anymore so I don't know for sure. Also, Corpsmen are enlisted. If a person has completed college, even just a BA in Underwater Basket Weaving, the military is going to want to make you an officer, so again, we're back to Doctor, and Doctor is not embedded in any combat detachment ever. Way too valuable. (I fully expect someone to tell me I'm wrong; that usually happens when I make sweeping, absolute statements.) This 100%. She'd either need to get seriously injured/crippled and get a medical discharge, go nuts and get a psych discharge, or serve her term. I think an officer can resign their commission, but I have no idea how that works, just heard the term "resigned his commission". It never really had a good tone to it. So OP, you're probably going to have to pivot direction somewhere in this, because I can't see all those things occurring together. Maybe another country's military could have all that happen, or maybe she just takes a lot of kickboxing classes in her free time, or maybe she didn't finish college and goes enlisted.
All US Medics and NATO notations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68W https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PdimHHqJ-4 This is different types and specializations https://www.thebalancecareers.com/different-types-of-combat-medics-4122180 This is the difference between Civilian and army medic training… https://www.ems1.com/careers/articles/1178735-How-army-combat-medic-training-is-different-from-civilian-EMS/ $40k https://www.indeed.com/salaries/Combat-Medic-Salaries Combat veteran women stories https://taskandpurpose.com/6-women-who-fought-in-direct-combat-in-iraq-and-afghanistan I think another MC skill set can open some wide options… PJs etc
She wins a state lottery competition to - 'be a combat medic' on a televised show with the whole world watching - an 'exciting prize adventure' for the lady of six weeks embedded in Bazra. Jane is a medic with a box of plasters or band-aids weighed on her back in a big white box and a peace sign logo drawn upon it. She drew that herself in the helicopter gunship, and also the "War is hell" was drawed on her war hat in big italics by some idiot gunner she talks to. That's the other thing about her, she talks to soldiers not just officers. Rushing between units on the battlefield distributing plasters she is very morale-boosting for the soldiers as Dr Jane and the President says something like "Go get 'em, my doctor Jane" during his address. On the last day of her holiday an ISIS rocket plane shoots off her head, and the famous song "Curls in the Wind" written in Jane's memory by probably a rapper.. The state funeral attended by world leaders and the lottery show cancelled. Ordinary professional POV/ideas/wip
Thanks for you help, guys. As you can see, I am not very versed in those military stuff. And I don't want to get lost in the details of her backstory yet, but I know a little bit about becoming a medical doctor, so I got that side covered. It's the military side I have trouble researching. Okay, okay. How about this resume? - She does not study medicine. She is just a young woman who enlists with the U.S. Army to become a (combat) medic - She undergoes basic combat training and EMT training - She is deployed somewhere and provides first aid and trauma care on the battlefield - After her first tour she returns to the US she is released from active duty, but still has reserve obligations - She decides to study medicine and becomes a medical intern. Is that a somewhat realistic scenario?
