When I was in the Navy, I had to get a vaccination against Japanese Encephalitis. It made me incredibly sick for about three days. At the time, I was the IDC at a landlocked Navy base and so was in charge of sick call, because the actual officer in charge had a fun habit of assigning himself to off-base activities and was unreachable. I made it through the first day, but the second day I reported myself for sick call, sent myself back to barracks, tried unsuccessfully to reach the unreachable officer, and so I reported to the base commander that sick call would be closed because the only other person we had was a wet-behind-the-ears E1 who probably couldn’t spell his own name. The officer got in some trouble, though I never found out how much because I deployed the next week.
He got a promotion, I guarantee it.
Student loon debt
He may have, eventually, but maybe not-- the base commander was pretty steamed. We had a mutual-assistance agreement with the town where the base was, except the assistance was mostly one-way to their advantage. The officer liked to spend time there because he could harass the nurses at the hospital without getting in any trouble. One of the happiest days of my life was when I finally got out of that place even if I did spend the next six months sailing around the western Pacific.
Any of them named Eva Peron? If not, I won’t cry for any of them.
Well yes. Technically, George Washington ordered his troops to get variolation, which was exposure to the actual smallpox virus. This was before Jenner noticed that milk maids typically didn’t get smallpox and figured out that cowpox conferred immunity to the much more dangerous smallpox virus. Variolation was MUCH more dangerous.
As a taxpayer I would prefer the military sue them for wasting everyone’s time.
Doctors can go through medical school (Duke in Paul’s case, Penn for Mehmet Oz) and learn lots about medicine without engaging with the science behind a lot of it. Given the God complex that a lot of doctors have, medicine has its share of cranks.
Despite the annoying, unethical bullshit with creating his own certification board, Paul was initially certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology and his license to practice medicine in Kentucky is apparently still valid. Would I schedule an appointment with the guy? Hell no. Is he a libertarian crank and a complete douchebag? Hell yes. Could I go on in this vein for hours? Hell yes. Is he a fake doctor? Unfortunately no.
I witnessed a dual typhus & cholera outbreak in South America early 80’s.
The entire ship’s crew were placed under quarantine while we waited for the diseases 
to show their ugly face.
Luckily for us nobody got ill, as for those folks on shore, things weren’t so grand.
We got the hell outa there, close call.
Refusing the vaccine amounts to insubordination, so they damn well should be drummed out.
Continued enrollment/employment there should have been made contigent on getting the vaccine a long time ago.
Good.
Refusing to transfer any credits would be gravy.
This is bullshit.
Vaccinations should be required at all the service academies.
He didn’t get certified by his own created board though. He created the board to avoid paying dues. There’s basically two board types for medical people. The “specialty board” which is, basically, the board that deals with doctors who do what you do, and the state medical licensure board. It’s that state board that certifies you. The board Rand Paul created was an Opthamalogy centric specialty board. Think of those boards as expensive country clubs.
The Air Force is notoriously the most right-wing religious of the forces, which makes this extra interesting.
Could be true.
I have a relative who flies fighter jets now after graduating AA.
Full MAGA asshole who on his spare time makes automatic weapons for friends.
And calcified bullshit factories.
And, IIRC, getting thrown out of the academy after you finish your 2d year means you need to pay Uncle Sam back. I don’t know what the imputed cost of the USAFA is, but it ain’t cheap.
When I was a chemistry student at Imperial College, I worked in IT support for the medical school and would sometimes see student doctors struggling with their chemistry homework, and can confirm that in general, doctors are not scientists.
To be fair to medical doctors, it’s mostly society that imbues them with an absurd level of authority. They’re not like physicists, who notoriously assume themselves to be experts on everything.
I know this is getting off topic, but, hell, I wish I could experience interactions with the medical community the way you have!
I know there are some MDs here on the bbs, whom I hold in high regard, but as a woman navigating health issues, your summation sounds like a fantasy land.
As another chemist (although I went into IT in the late nineties), I’d argue that we don’t do a very good job teaching how science actually works anywhere. It’s particularly bad in fields like medicine and engineering, though, where you learn lots of things about the results of science.
Not coincidentally, that’s where a lot of cranks come from. I can think of lots of creationists back in the day who were engineers (and the occasional doctor).
To be fair, medical school is tough enough as it is. So while I think society would benefit from teaching doctors more about how science works, I unfortunately do understand why we don’t really do it.
It was a cold calculation. The ones who got sick would be at camp, where they could be cared for. In the field, Smallpox would sweep through the force, and the best that could be done was to throw them on a cart.
Nobody disputes that Paul received an M.D. from the Duke University School of Medicine in 1988
Being “board certified” is something else
