What is the role of army emergency med doctor?

Hello,

This question doesn't actually have the most straightforward answer I am afraid, but I'll do my best to try and make it make sense!

The role of an Army GP varies a lot depending on which part of the Army they are working for, but generally speaking it will be Army GPs who do the vast majority of deployments and will provide most of the pre hospital care. The level of PHEC training GPs have varies depending on their role and who they deploy with.

EM doctors do also deploy, the capacity in which they deploy may be a little different depending on who they deploy with and what level of risk there is in the area they deploy to. If they are going in to a particularly high risk area, it may be that they are involved in the pre hospital care element (they would need to specialise in PHEM to do this), but generally speaking, the majority of the time EM doctors will be located in a Role 2 or 3 hospital so that they have access to all the equipment and facilities they need to use their skills appropriately.

So in answer to your question, it is possible for an EM doctor to end up working in a high risk environment, but it is more likely to be a GP.

I would usually try and advise medical students not to worry too much about specialty choices at this stage, if you think the Army would be something you may be interested in then I would consider applying and doing your GDMO years with us. This will give you a really good insight into the different roles open to military doctors, both GPs and EM docs, and would help you to make a more informed choice. I have several colleagues who started GDMO time wanting to go in to EM but chose to specialise in GP in the end, and vice versa. Even if you decide the Army is not for you, GDMO is great for building up your CV, and the GDMOs I know who have applied for EM have all benchmarked very highly in the national applications, so even if you did decide to leave, you would stand a good chance of getting one of your top choice jobs back in the NHS.

Best of luck with 4th year, and if you have any other questions about joining as a doctor, please do let me know.

Thank you for answering my question! I have been reading the discussions on here and they are really useful. Much appreciated.