Reserve Nursing

Miss Mab · Apr 8, 2008

just have a few questions i was wondering if anyone could anwser. . i am strongly considering joining the reserves when i graduate, probally the air force because i have always liked this branch and aeromedical evac looks awesome.
well, walsh, technically i should be in just the right [color=white]position to answer you questions. i am a newly commissioned 2lt in the afrc and assigned to an aeromedical evac squadron as a flight nurse 46f3. i'm still quite early in the game, however, so i'll pass try to passon what i can.
first off, congrats on your school accomplishments. you're obviously quite focused to be getting ready to finish bsn at 21. good on ya!
1. seeing how i want to return to get my masters and become a crna as soon as possible, will the reserves be flexible with my scedule to accommodate school or is there any way to go inactive while i am completeing my masters?
well, see there, right away a little sketchy on my end, sorry.
you should know right off that the entire application process for air force nurse reserve commissioning , based both on my own experience and on others here and at the unit, has tended to be quite loooooooong as of late. not sure how it compares to the active side. maybe others can chime in to elaborate on that and anything else they might have gleaned from the process.
it took me almost 2 years exactly from the day of my bsn graduation until my official wing inprocessing. i did require a relatively benign medical waiver but even without that it was pretty much a tortoise race. i'm sure things can change, though, so take my forthcoming advice as subject to alteration :)
if, for example, it took you a bit more than a year for the whole packaging and acceptance process, that actually might be good as you would be able to gain the necessary experience to come in with an icu identifier which may be of help to you somewhere further in your af career. i realize it's for your crna school app. but great to cover both ends and all that.
but, once in and 'good to go', the training to get you up to speed with a flying squadron is very involved and would make it nearly impossible to be a ft student and at the same time accomplish the requirements necesssary to be a flyer. in brief order, you have cot(5weeks) then shortly thereafter, flight school(i think 5 weeks again) and because you would definitely be in after start of fiscal 09 you would also have sere training(3 weeks) up in washington. so that's better than three months guaranteed 'gone' time and we haven't even approached the ground training and check rides that need to be done once back at your unit for you to tuly be 'good to go.' truth is, until that time, we're not much of a benefit to the unit.
best i can tell and this is only with a picture perfect scheduling set-up, it would take approx. 6-9 months until you would be up and ready to start doing the actual afsc you were 'hired' for. and i really do mean w/ no-conflict schedule coordination with the various schools/depts.
so, i suppose after all of that is done you could attend nursing school w/out too many conflicts as you would consider that your 'real' world ft job. i personally think it would be too stressful because you can't afford to drop the ball even a litle bit on either commitment.too fragile a situation for me.
i also have no idea if you could go inactive for school. i would tend to think not. they have a position they want to fill, not fill, train and then immediately release and it sounds like you're in a hurry to start your crna timeline which i understand. i personally wouldn't attempt any formal schooling without some sort of a release. 2 straight years is a long time. highly likely you'd be 'needed' at some point during in that rotation.
2. if i wait till after grad school, will my master's allow me to enter at a high rank?
this is a fairly safe yes. with a bsn and msn you would likely enter as a 1lt. however, i'm also not sure what happens when you are a crna if you can voluntarily take a position that doesn't require that skill but then get paid or recieve the benefits for having that same skill that you're not using. hmmmm. probably still yes.
(though no straight from civilian wants to hear it, including myself not so long ago by the way, it really does behoove you to step into a more junior role while you're still learning your way around a new job and acclimating to your greater responsibilities as an officer and supervisor. especially as young as you are with so much time to grow.
when folks come in at capt/maj. as many health professionals do because of our education and experiences, well guess what, command expects you to come in and perform in that higher role. well.
it's not supposed to be ojt and no one has time to baby-step you through the process. in my opinion, you kind of guarantee yourself the loss of many forgiven 'oopies' because you just didn't know or whatever. at those levels and above you are already supposed to. no excuses.)
or were you thinking of fn until you completed crna and then just switch afsc over to the medical side? yeah, you need a health professions recruiter on this one. evac is actually not covered under the medical command group but instead on the ops side, so the two worlds are not easily interchanged.
fn critical skills accessions bonuses have been fairly generous as of late. my guess is an even greater need for crna's would also be evident in some nice bonuses there as well. might be addtl. info to weigh in your decision making process.....
.does any one have any information on aeromedical evacuation? what's training like, what do you do on your drilling weekends, etc?
okay! aes and uta weekends. i am at your sevice. lol.
seriously, the evac mission is such an awesome and fulfilling tasking. this is one of those assignments where it truly is an honor just to do your job. turns out the actual mission flying is something akin to 'med surg in the sky' as others have mentioned before, i just see it as being responsiible for assessing and treating a whole lot more patients than on the floor, with the added bonus of minimal space and finite( quite literally) supply, physiological flight stressors and normally no physician backup should things take any unexpected turns.
that's actually probably number 3 of the reasons i wanted to do ae. i love the teamwork the job demands between fn, ae tech and ops to get things done. the fact that you need to be skilled and ready, each of you, for whatever comes up because there isn't a lot of 'back up,' up there.
so, to that end, weekends are generally filled with the 80,000 training requirements you need to complete in order to stay both a fully qualified flight rn(think all your ceu/jcaho/certs/pt. safety/immun/physicals/) but also stay up to date w/ flightcrew demands as well. don't forget how many of these things are also recurring annual competencies so there really is a bit of a feeling of chasing the tail and never getting ahead.
plus you get assigned what are termed 'additional duties," like unit security manager or department manageror what have you.
basically this is going to be your side job, to what would be your "part-time af reserve commitment" which is in itself a second job to your presumable real live ft one! :) remember you still have that one?
oh yeah, did i mention that you also need to fly at least every 60 days as well to keep current on that? those can be 1-5 day trips and they may or may not coincide w/uta weekends. otherwise you shcedule during the week, hopefully on your off days.
oh yeah, and then there is always the spector of deployment.
listen, i know i just touched on a bit of what it is aes members do and i hope you didn't read it as a somehow negative telling. (also, i know i gave you probably too much extraneous info but i am selfishly going to use this as a brief outline to also give my family as a heads up about where i've been so much lately)
it seems overwhelming all the needs piling up but this group so far has proven amazing and hopefully when i get up to speed i can take a bit of that load off.
can't swear to it for certain, but i have been told that if you do choose to do aes, know that while all reserve component members are required to work two day every month and then 14 days annual tour(and let's be real, every unit/service member is doing way more than that these days)per year, aes members typically work 3 times that number and this is when not under any unusual orders. it's an out of the ordinary reserve commitment you would be making. i'm actually more jazzed right now then i was last weekend! but my little hands are tired...
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so, i do hope i've given you some helpful info. feel free to compare notes w/whoever should also come along. let me know if i can be of any further assistance.
get thee to a health professions recruiter to get the real scoop. not an enlisted recruiter. just two differnt ball games. it can be confusing enough when dealing with the correct poc.
congrats on your upcoming graduation!
best-
lt mab

Walsh8 · Apr 9, 2008

Thank you for your response Lt. Mab, You gave some great information. Do you have a rough estimate how many days a month aeromed evac nurses actually serve? As for your flight requirement every 60 days, does this have to be a medical related flight or is it any flight that might be taking off from base. By the way congratulations on your commission, what base are you stationed at?