Hi Harry,

I am currently a GP trainee, and as such my role is non deployable. We follow the same training pathway as our NHS colleagues, which means there is fairly strict criteria in regards to how much time you can spend out of training (enough time for a military ski trip, but not enough time to deploy).

As a GDMO (General duties medical officer), the role you fill in between FY2 and starting specialty training, I deployed/went on exercise fairly regularly. This has varied over the years, but at the moment the tempo for GDMOs if fairly high and most GDMOs will expect to go away a couple of times a year (some more, some less). The length of each deployment/exercise will vary. Some can be up to 6 months - although we often split these between 2 GDMOs if possible so you do 3 months each. Many at the moment are 6 weeks. You may do the odd exercise which is just a couple of weeks.

My GDMO experience was fairly typical so I'll tell you exactly what I did.
Year 1 - 6 weeks in Austria, 5 weeks in France (both these trips were more for sport than 'work'), should have gone to Kenya for 4 weeks but I had a bit of an accident and you aren't allowed to deploy with a leg in plaster.
Year 2 - (finished rehab first!), then Brunei 8 weeks, Oman 4 weeks, France 4 weeks (sport), Pre deployment training 6 weeks, deployment in Africa 7 weeks.

Most of my colleagues did something similar, some did a lot more and some a bit less.

07 May, 2020 10:28