How often does an army doctor work abroad and how long after foundation training would abroad placements begin?

Hello,

After foundation training you attend RMAS for about 12 weeks. Then you get a few weeks off before doing about 5 months at DMS(W) near Lichfield for your postgraduate medical officers course. After this you are posted to a medical regiment and have a week or two there before starting at your military medical centre. Usually you get a chance to take some leave and they try to give you 6 weeks protected induction time before your first exercise/deployment. So all in all, its probably about a year after you finish your foundation year to when you will first go abroad. Sometimes there are exceptions to this rule though!

Some GDMOs will be posted abroad from the very start, we have permanent med centres in various place round the world. It will depend on what jobs need filling during the year you start.

How often you go abroad is very variable. I have colleagues who only went away a couple of times during their GDMO time, and others who seemed to be away constantly. Usually people that are away a lot have volunteered.
It will also depend on how busy the Army is during those years.

In terms of the work, it depends on where you go and who with. But usually it is to provide a combination of pre hospital emergency care and primary health care.

During specialty training you are usually non-deployable and you don't go abroad at all. After that it depends what you have specialised in. GPs go away quite a lot, orthopaedic surgeons not so much (at the moment).

I hope that answers your question.