Navy Medical Corps: nec. criteria for unfit finding?

O

OneMoreNavyDoc

PEB Forum Regular Member
Registered Member
So I've received informal findings from my second board in 2 years -- fit, of course, as I'm medical corps, and I hear it's next to impossible to be found unfit as a physician. Yes, I recognize given most of your experiences with Navy doctors, I'll garner little sympathy -- but I can only say I'm not a jerk, I promise.

Here's my question to those with experience -- is an adverse credentialling action a necessary requirement for a medical corps officer to be found unfit? The board didn't even have my package long enough to have read it, and their comments were just this:
"The member is a Medical Officer with no adverse credentialing action. The member is fit."

Now I believe, because of the unique nature of my specialty (which I won't divulge yet for fear of identifying myself too much), that there is a solid argument that the essential duties of my job go well beyond my formal clinical credentials, but I don't know that anyone at the PEB will listen. With the exception of my director, my command doesn't seem to be particularly supportive at this point as they think it's a lost cause. I will just find it very difficult to sign anything that says that I accept that I'm fit for full duty. I have to decide if it's worth the effort to fight this, or if I should just roll over and resign -- because I can't take this anymore. I'm miserable, and hemorrhaging cash to a nanny because I can't even take care of my kids at night on my own. At least one person here believes the command should be able to ad-sep me, but I'm not seeing it, beyond the bottom of page 3 in OPNAVINST 6110.10J that says after 2 consecutive PRT waivers (which I've had, and then some), I have to be referred to the MEB and the MEB findings have to get sent to PERS-8. It's not clear what goversn what PERS-8 would do with said findings.

(Ensuing rant: If all the Navy wants is a credentialed physician, why even have a medical corps, full of doctors they have to pay to PCS every 3ish years and families they have to pay for Tricare for? Why not just hire civilians? Why have I been told since day one in the Navy that I'm a "naval officer first, and a physician second" if all they care about is my ability to practice under my formal credentials? I've paid back my school obligation. Why keep me when my command says I'm a liability and 10+ specialists have concluded I'm not fit? Instead, they want to trap me in a job where I'll never progress, as I can't work efficiently and can't deploy, I'm in constant pain, and everyone resents me for not deploying while they deploy repeatedly? And physical therapy (which helped the pain somehwat) has turned me away because I'm not getting completely better -- they only want to see people who get better fast enough. So now I've documented the hell out of conditions, with no benefit to myself, such that now I'll never be able to purchase a disability policy or further life insurance to protect my family and my investment of years and years and years of my life in training.)

Thanks for listening.
 
Doc,
As a medic are you allowed to request a FPEB? I know that medics are processed differently. It is difficult to understand your full predicament given the lack of medical facts. If you were MEB'd, what would you want to do next - what is the end game?
Mike
 
chaplaincharlie said:
Doc,
As a medic are you allowed to request a FPEB? I know that medics are processed differently. It is difficult to understand your full predicament given the lack of medical facts. If you were MEB'd, what would you want to do next - what is the end game?
Mike
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Well, I think my ideal situation at this point would be medical retirement. I was told that with an informal finding of fit, I wasn't guaranteed a formal board, but that I could request it and see. Alas, the attorney I was sent to is out of pocket for most of this week and my deadline for rebuttal is rapidly approaching. I'm just not sure it's worth all the effort of talking my command into extending themselves again for me, and trying to prepare yet another statement (when they didn't read the first ones) if there's truly zero chance of being found unfit as a medical corps officer without any adverse credentialling actions. It took extra months to get my NMA signed in the first place; I can't imagine being able to get further material out of the front office in time for the deadline I was given.

The short version of my medical situation is ankylosing spondylitis, severe migraines, and some other manifestations that often accompay chronic pain.
 
@OneMoreNavyDoc

Chronic pain is difficult. I hope you will consider the FPEB. I understand that the MC must be treated differently because of their influence on the process, but adverse credentialing action should not be THE standard.

Additionally, given you inability to provide care for you children, one could argue that you are incapable (due to medical conditions) of adequately caring for patients. A creditable credentialing process must include performance examination, not just education and licensure verification.
 
I think it goes beyond just wanting someone for deployments. I am fairly confident there is a significant salary difference as well. There is also the fact uniformed docs play by their rules better. Even if you never deployed, there is a real desire for them to keep you in uniform, so much so they likely don't care if you never deploy, can't work 8 hours a day, or other severe limitations. Even if you only showed up for 4 hours and reviewed paperwork I'm sure they'd be happy to keep you around. There is never enough uniformed docs. I think the information they need is something that presents a real safety issue, either for you or your patients.

You have to remember what the ultimate statement behind an unfit finding represents. Involuntary separation. VA comp is what was intended to compensate you for your injuries, disability retirement is to compensate you for the fact they won't allow you to serve until retirement. Its not about them acknowledging your disability, its about them saying you're just not good enough.

Now, if they accept your limitations, that means you can't be negatively judged for those limitations. Its the reality of that actually happening where it gets hard. How many avoid a temp profile and make a problem worse because of the judgments? I don't know if there's a lot to be said besides drink water and drive on. The reality of it is, if found unfit you'd probably go find a job as a doctor somewhere else. Yes, they won't be asking as much of you, you'll have more control of your schedule, other things, but still, you likely can do the job they find important. I'd treat the PEB finding of fit as permission to treat your job the same way and find a way to ride it out until retirement.

FYI, I had a neighbor who TRICARE was paying 1k a month due to her disabilities making household tasks too difficult, so she could pay someone to transport kids and clean the house, things like that. Might be worth looking into. She was a spouse, but still I imagine its possible.
 
Are you taking immune suppressive drugs for your AS? Does that cause issues being around sick individuals?

Mike
 
chaplaincharlie said:
Beyond retirement, what do want to do?
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Not sure -- something that doesn't exacerbate relentless pain and hopefully provides for my family's security. Ideally, I'd like to retain my medical license, and perhaps practice in a part time civilian setting. My specialty is a strange one that is often non-clinical, and has few obvious civilian job openings -- for those boarded only in my specialty, which is unusual. Most in my specialty were previously boarded in another specialty (I am not). The practive of my specialty in the Navy varies in many ways from civilian opportunities, in that it involves more operational settings. Sorry for being obtuse, still don't feel safe revealing my full identity here!
 
maparker said:
Are you taking immune suppressive drugs for your AS? Does that cause issues being around sick individuals?

Mike
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Until the very near future, I've had an ongoing contraindication to immunosuppressive drugs. My specialty is typically non-clinical, though it may involve some exposures to infectious disease on occasion.
 
chaplaincharlie said:
@OneMoreNavyDoc

... the MC must be treated differently because of their influence on the process, but adverse credentialing action should not be THE standard.

....
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Thank you. THIS. Yes this. This is what I find frustrating. My specialty's privileges are written in such a way as they're nowhere near the full picture of what's expected of us. It's a weird specialty. If there were more of us, I'd feel comfortable revealing it. I'm just not quite comfortable fully decloaking here yet. Sorry.
 
OneMoreNavyDoc said:
Not sure -- something that doesn't exacerbate relentless pain and hopefully provides for my family's security. Ideally, I'd like to retain my medical license, and perhaps practice in a part time civilian setting. My specialty is a strange one that is often non-clinical, and has few obvious civilian job openings -- for those boarded only in my specialty, which is unusual. Most in my specialty were previously boarded in another specialty (I am not). The practive of my specialty in the Navy varies in many ways from civilian opportunities, in that it involves more operational settings. Sorry for being obtuse, still don't feel safe revealing my full identity here!
Click to expand...

I as not trying to get to your specialty, but rather trying to find out if you were interested in continued practice and licensure. There are back door ways to effect military provider's credentialing but those are not a good avenues if you want to continue to practice as a civilian. Doc in the boxes rarely cares about specialization and hire lots of part timers.
 
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