What are General Medical officer duties? Is it like being a GP?

Hello,

So, firstly, GDMO duties. It is a little bit like being a GP. You are assigned to a medical regiment and a medical centre (they probably won't be at the same location). You have a GP supervisor at your medical centre, usually they are military, but sometimes they might be civilian, often the civilians are ex-military. While in the UK you work mostly at your medical centre doing primary health care and occupational medicine.

You will also do some work at your medical regiment, this varies between regiments but you might help with teaching combat medical technicians and you may go on exercise with them. The medical regiment is in charge of all your admin and the senior medical officer will be in charge of where and when you deploy/go on exercise.

When you deploy/go on exercise you will provide primary health care and pre hospital emergency care. You will get lots of training in pre-hospital care prior to your first job.

In answer to your second question regarding specialty training. Most people will end up doing general practice. There are more training jobs for general practice each year than there are for secondary health care jobs, but also it's important to remember military general practice is a different to civilian general practice. You look after a different population and you need to be comfortable with occupational medicine (a large part of a GPs role in the military) and pre-hospital emergency care.

But if you want to do other specialties you can (within reason). There are usually several emergency medicine and general surgical training posts a year, as well as various other specialties. If you did finish GDMO duties and decide you wished to pursue training back in the NHS, whether the Army just isn't for you or the specialty you want to do isn't available, then the Army will support you in your application.

I hope that answers your question, do let me know if you have any other queries or need any clarification on the above.