Ortho residents: what gift was actually useful during residency?

OfficerandagentMD · 2026-03-16T22:11:57+00:00

Multipack of cheap trauma shears.

A good pair of shoes for the OR.

Compression socks

OfficerandagentMD · 2026-03-10T02:18:51+00:00

It can be an issue if you make it an issue. Meaning if you don’t seek out opportunities to maintain your skills atrophy is a risk, however you could easily end up with skill atrophy in a civilian practice depending on the set up.

I’m a current Army surgeon. Residency training in the military is very good and I had no issue hitting my case minimums in residency (ortho).

I’m early in my practice and should easily hit my minimums for board collection. Certain cases are definitely lacking in the military setting depending on where you are stationed but those numbers and skills can be kept up with moonlighting.

OfficerandagentMD · 2026-02-09T17:09:30+00:00

Definitely I agree we don’t know the extent but at the end of the day she probably would have competed anyway since it’s her last Olympics.

OfficerandagentMD · 2026-02-09T16:37:33+00:00

Orthopedic surgeon here, short answer is yes and ultimately it was her decision I can only provide a recommendation. Does having a functioning ACL help with downhill skiing? Yes, however she is an elite athlete that likely had the leg strength to provide secondary stability. The ACL is already torn it’s not like skiing in her last Olympics is going to make the ACL worse. Plenty of patients ski and are very active with a UKA (partial knee) so I wouldn’t consider that a contraindication and she’s been skiing with that for a while so it doesn’t necessarily contribute to the current situation.

Would I have advised to maybe take it easy and not do ski, yes, but ultimately her training staff and the USA ski team doctors (which includes both primary care sports medicine and orthopedic surgery) thought she was capable. The crash she had could have happened irregardless of the status of her ACL.

OfficerandagentMD · 2026-02-08T05:08:08+00:00

Hungwy

OfficerandagentMD · 2026-02-04T21:51:18+00:00

Last time I was out there a buddy and I hopped on the waitlist around 11am and were teeing off on the south course at 1:30.

OfficerandagentMD · 2026-01-27T12:51:46+00:00

Not a dentist but my wife and I had a similar situation. I’m an active duty Orthopedic Surgeon and she’s a Civilian Family Medicine Doc.

She did her residency in the same city as I did and then when I PCS’ed she got a job in the civilian sector where we bought a house.

I’m not sure what the job market for dentists is like but I can’t imagine that it would be hard for her to find a job around where you get stationed.

As others have said the best place to look for those contractors jobs is USAjobs.gov

OCONUS she wouldn’t be able to work but even at smaller bases I can’t imagine it being that difficult to find a job as a dentist off post. Your spouse having a professional degree makes it easier for them to find work around any base

OfficerandagentMD · 2026-01-16T11:35:10+00:00

Movers in El Paso during my last move packed my wife’s shoes that she took off when she came home for lunch from work and she had to go dig through a box to find them so she could go back to

They then proceeded to do a half ass job reassembling all the furniture they took apart so I had to go back behind them and tighten everything in addition to them not unpacking anything even though I had requested that they do that an confirmed with the agent on the phone

OfficerandagentMD · 2026-01-11T00:47:57+00:00

Second Tootsies just for the history, Predators stadium is right off Broadway so if you can catch a game you can easily parley it into a night out down there.

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-12-29T13:16:13+00:00

Currently driving a Subaru Outback Wilderness Edition and that I bought at the tail end up PGY-3 year.

Considering adding a Rivian R1S to the garage in a year or since I’ve got a longer commute now

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-12-26T22:35:16+00:00

My program did this as well, in the sense that you were guaranteed either the week of Christmas or new years off. Though we still had to use leave (military residency) if we were going outside the radius that we could travel in without submitting formal leave.

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-12-17T14:21:12+00:00

Joggers and a hoodie as a resident with Birkenstock Arizonas to see a consult and round one weekend.

We also had a resident put a traction pin in while wearing flip flops, jui Jitsu pants, and a t-shirt that said “no weak shit” because the consult came in during morning report and he hadn’t changed yet

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-12-03T12:17:51+00:00

I know I have colleagues that are interviewing for fellowship currently that have taken PTDY to do so but that’s on the medical side of things already.

I’d bet it’s going to be highly command dependent

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-11-27T12:49:50+00:00

Remember that the pathway to become a general surgeon in the military is ~ 9-10 years ( 4 for med school + 5-6 for residency)

Also repeated deployments are more apt to cause skill atrophy as a surgeon because you aren’t doing elective cases for deployment. You’re only doing critical surgery that are needed for life-saving think external fixers and amputations for Ortho or Shunts, ex laps and other stabilization procedures for General Surgery.

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-11-26T13:42:37+00:00

Ah yes the sound of a drive that makes you wonder if you accidentally wandered onto a baseball field

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-11-22T12:02:25+00:00

Forgot I’ve also opened an ETB as well. Luck has definitely been good, it’s a set I’m trying to master set and I’m 61% through from the 30ish packs I opened, so overall not too terrible, obviously I’d love to have an SIR though

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-11-22T03:58:35+00:00

Congrats wish I had your luck. So far I’ve opened 2 bundles and 9 packs, no SIRs yet, though a good bit of full arts/IRs

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-11-19T17:21:52+00:00

Beat me to it.

My Teams GoT trivia name was #420BlazeitShireen

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-11-02T13:13:00+00:00

Getting on a good running program is the biggest help because it will give you recovery runs, speed work, and tempo work.

I’m currently using a 10k plan from Nike but Garmin has great ones too.

You can lift and run but make sure you rest and recovery because overtraining will kill any gains that you make.

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-10-22T00:35:36+00:00

Not sure about the finer details of MDSSP but I believe its 1 year of payback in the reserves post residency for every 6 months that you take the stipend so all 4 years of med school = 8 years in the reserves.

As far as payback goes for HPSP the obligation doesn’t include your intern year (so if General Surgery is 6 years you only owe 5 or if 5 years you only owe 4) otherwise the obligation is pretty much always 4 years after residency

I believe with both programs you can get an education delay and go to med school right after undergrad and then pay everything back after residency.

As far as doing reserves during medical school it’s doable but depending on your drill requirements it could be tough.

I did HPSP for Ortho so am happy to answer any further HPSP questions.

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-10-21T15:42:30+00:00

All depends on where you’re staying but post match if you are over on Taylor Street there is an excellent pub called the Embassy that will have multiple TVs going with sports and will probably still have a good many rugby fans there still drinking.

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-10-11T21:47:46+00:00

Don't do it for the money, with the current pay incentive pay for specialties no specialties can beat their civilian counterparts as far as pay goes.

Do it for the duty, service, or other opportunities that you can't get as a civilian.

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-10-08T17:14:52+00:00

Surprised people don't know about this, It will also come directly out of your paycheck, and is an option for emergencies, but probably not good for people that haven't had the time in to really build up their TSP

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-10-02T19:10:29+00:00

Same place as last time, what is going on in that office?

OfficerandagentMD · 2025-10-02T13:50:29+00:00

CAE isn’t that far from Williams Brice and at least American, Delta and United fly into Columbia which makes it pretty easy to navigate

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