What does a typical day involve and how do you deal with being away from your family?

Hello,

I can only really give you an idea of what a typical day for a general duties medical officer might be, all careers in the military are very different!

We start clinic around 0800, there is usually time for a coffee break mid morning, and then a lunch break at midday. Some GDMOs will go to unit PT sessions, others use their lunch time to do PT. In the afternoon there may be another clinic or you may have practice meetings to attend. On Wednesdays you may be able to join in with the unit sports afternoon. We usually finish by 1630, depending on how much paperwork you have to do.

A typical day while on exercise or deployed varies! Often it starts with a sick parade, but then will depend on everything else that's going on.

While at home it is job dependent, but most serving personnel start around 0800 and finish around 1630, with time for unit PT and lunch. Often units will finish slightly earlier on a Friday to allow those who live further away to get home for the weekend.

How you manage away from home is quite individual, some people don't manage well and will choose to leave the forces when they have a family, others find being deployed with lots of others in the same situation really helpful. There is good support for both those who are deployed and their families at home.

I hope that helps!

Thank you for your question, being away from your family can be difficult especially if you have never been away before. However being with friends and with an active work routine, you may find the time will fly by.

A typical day at Regimental duty involves, physical training (PT) for about 90 minutes, then back to work around 10:30 AM to complete various tasks (trade dependant). You will then break for lunch at 12:30PM, back to work at 1:45PM and your day tend to end around 4:30PM to relax and sort yourself out for the next day. Mon, Tue, Thurs tend to be full working days and Wed and Fri tend to be shorter (work dependant) due to sports afternoon and Commanding Officer's PT respectively.

Hope this helps.