Army nursing or Air force nursing?

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Dec 10, 2014

Hi, there. Welcome to Allnurses.com!

Your post has been moved to the Govt/Military Nursing forum with the goal of attracting replies from other military nurses. Good luck!

Enthused RN, BSN, RN · Dec 10, 2014

It sounds like it might come down to what specialty you would like to practice on the military side - med/surg or flight nursing? Also, if possible, I would ask each respective unit what your drill weekend would look like. As a med/surg nurse in the Army National Guard, my drill weekends are actually quite boring but each unit is different.

jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA · Dec 10, 2014

You'll definitely deploy a lot more as a flight nurse.

Military med-surg (which is where I am right now) can be a bit boring when you're not deployed. The acuity of a military med-surg floor is a lot lower than that in even a civilian community hospital; AD people are a lot healthier than the general population.

bikes4fun · Dec 10, 2014

Thank you for the insight thus far! I do have a few other questions!

1) What do you folks that are med surg typically do on your drill weekends exactly? Just curious as to what is considered boring....paper work? Meetings? Etc

2) Benefits are essentially the same on the reserve side for both branches right?

3) I'm told that army is much larger than AF and therefore often presents more opportunity for advancement as well as more opportunity to qualify for certain specialties (OR nurse, OB nurse, weapons qualification, etc)

4) Are any of you attending school to earn an advanced degree at this time but not going on "student leave"? Is the military paying for you to go back to school? Are they requiring anything in terms of commitment?

Thanks again!

Enthused RN, BSN, RN · Dec 10, 2014

1) What do you folks that are med surg typically do on your drill weekends exactly? Just curious as to what is considered boring....paper work? Meetings? Etc,

By boring, I mean I do a lot of sitting around doing mandatory online training (i.e. sexual harassment training, anti-terrorism, etc.). I've been administering a lot of vaccinations especially when the medics have been pulled to do refresher training. I occasionally draw blood if the medics are having a hard time with a difficult stick. The last few drills I've been helping to orient the newer officers, i.e. show them the websites in which to enroll for Tricare, get them started on phase 1 BOLC (on-line training), etc.

2) Benefits are essentially the same on the reserve side for both branches right?

Yup. Pay and benefits are the same regardless of which branch you are in. The only exception would be sign on bonuses/student loan repayments but I think those have largely gone away for nurses since the draw down began. Google "military pay charts" to see what you would make for drill pay.

3) I'm told that army is much larger than AF and therefore often presents more opportunity for advancement as well as more opportunity to qualify for certain specialties (OR nurse, OB nurse, weapons qualification, etc),

The Army is definitely larger and there seems to be a lot of opportunities, however, it depends on your unit and chain of command in addition to yourself (PT scores, etc.) on whether you will be able to partake in those opportunities. In general, I hear that it's easier to go up the ranks on the Army side than it is on the Air Force side (heard that directly from prior-service AF people who are now Army).

4) Are any of you attending school to earn an advanced degree at this time but not going on "student leave"? Is the military paying for you to go back to school? Are they requiring anything in terms of commitment?

There is no student leave for reserves/Guard because you are already serving part-time. If you were to have something educational (or really anything) that conflicts with a drill weekend, you could ask your unit commander for permission to SUTA (Google it). SUTA is basically where you perform drill duty on alternate dates (i.e. you drill with a different unit, go to a nursing conference, pick up an extra mission, etc.). You could also ask for an authorized absence, you just don't get drill pay for that month and you miss out on some retirement points for that year. I haven't used the educational benefits yet. The educational benefits for the Reserves and the Guard actually differ. I'm toying with the idea of getting my master's within the next couple of years using a combination of my state's tuition assistance for the Guard (~$12K/annual) plus federal tuition assistance (~$4.5K/annual). I'm not sure if that entails additional service on my part but I don't care because I plan to be in for at least 20 years regardless. You can easily Google tuition assistance for Army reserves and Air National Guard. Remember for Guard you can get both federal and state benefits (depending on your state of course) since you would be serving both the state and the federal government.

**Edit: In the Guard, you can actually go on in-active status for a year for a variety of reasons, i.e. school, etc. I don't know how the Reserves work but I'm sure there's something similar.

jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA · Dec 10, 2014

Using federal tuition assistance ($4500 per year or $250/credit hour whichever is less) for a master's degree entails a 2 year commitment from the date you complete your degree. This commitment runs concurrently will all other commitments; if you already owed 3 years at that point it wouldn't tack on any extra.

There are full-time back-to-school programs for active duty nurses.

To my knowledge, flight nursing is pretty much an Air Force only thing. Our deployments are also often 3 months, instead of 6+. The Army, while bigger, is also doing more force downsizing than the Air Force right now. I'm not sure how this will affect your advancement. What you will do as a med-surg nurse will depend on how large your treatment facility is.

bikes4fun · Dec 10, 2014

Thank you all for the responses! I really am still torn! Anyone have any insight on bolc? How long is it for nurses these days? I know there is a lot of online stuff prior.

Enthused RN, BSN, RN · Dec 11, 2014

BOLC phase II for reserve (Army) nurses is 3 weeks and 4 days at Fort Sam Houston. You will need to complete phase I online before you apply for a seat in phase II. The online portion is super tedious. I'm not sure how the AF does their training for new nurse officers.

jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA · Dec 11, 2014

AF active duty, reserve, and air guard nurses all do 4.5 weeks of COT at Maxwell AFB; it's not that bad. There is an abbreviated version called RCOT, but I think that it is reserved for hard to recruit PhDs and sub-specialty MDs.

E.niles · Dec 11, 2014

I don't want to make things hard for you, but if you really want an interesting career consider the Navy Reserve Nurse Corps. I was a combat engineer for 22 years and served with all types of units during the war and on varrious deployments and the only reason I became a nurse was because of the way the Navy nurses treated me during an extended stay

jfratian, DNP, RN, CRNA · Dec 11, 2014

Honestly, nursing is pretty much 80%+ similar in any branch. It's common for nurses from multiple branches to work side by side on the same unit in some hospitals. There are small differences with special assignments, available bases, and culture. I think your decision should be more med/surg vs flight rather than branch 1 vs branch 2. I see you being away from home significantly more as a flight nurse.