It all depends on what type of IDC program you want to apply for. The medical training for every type of IDC is basically the same, but it differs from community to community. I can only speak for the Submarine Community.

As a Submarine IDC you will go to Groton, CT for all of your schooling.

First, you will go to BESS which is Basic Enlisted Submarine School. There you will learn all about basic submarine systems and construction and components. It's a lot of mechanical information about the different systems on the boat such as how we make water, purify our air, submerge and surface the boat. It also covers a bunch of other things related to basic submarining.

Then you will go to IDC School at NUMI, Naval Undersea Medical Institute also located on the New London Submarine Base. You begin phase 1, which is Radiation Health. It IS the Navy's Radiation Health Technician "C" School. You and your fellow IDC students will be in a classroom with a bunch of Junior HM's that are there to be Rad Health Tech's. It lasts for the first 2 months of IDC School and you will learn nothing but radiation health. It is not easy. As a Submarine IDC, it is a large portion of your job as an IDC on a Submarine. You will learn new math that covers determining a line and point source for radiation exposure, computing the decay rates of all possible radiation sources, ect. You will become close and intimate with the NAVMED P-5055, the Radiation Health Protection Manual. When I say intimate, I mean that you will be tested in writing and in oral boards for your knowledge and understanding. You will be expected to be able to state word for word, the chapter and paragraph on nearly every item in the manual. You will learn definitions word for word for all terms related to radiation health and exposure. You will learn the tables for physical qualifications, and lab values permitted for radiation exposure. Every test in Submarine IDC school is essay and fill in the blank. There are no multiple guess tests in either the Radiation Health or Medicine phases of school. In Rad Health you will have 3 oral examination boards that will be conducted by 3 instructors. You need to pass all 3.

My class lost 2 IDC students in Rad Health alone.

Medicine Phase: You will learn every system in the body, and nearly every disease state that exists. It is given at an incredibly fast pace. You will have a test every 1 to 2 days and you will also have your own program that you will need to start and maintain. What I mean, is every student will be given a quantity of fictitious names for crewmen and you will be required to make and complete medical records for each and every one of them. They are not real people, but you will create complete health records for each of them. It will be a mixture of radiation workers (nuclear trained personnel) and non radiation workers (non-nukes). You will train each person as you have learned to do in Rad Health. You will issue dosimetry and have to do all required reports, physical exams, ect.. At the same time as learning your daily lessons and preparing for tests nearly everyday. You will also be given "assignments" by the faculty. There is a lot of work that is involved with the assignments and you will be assigned a faculty advisor who you will submit all of your work to. These are a part of your grade and they are designed to get you used to the different things that may happen to you when you get on your boat.

You will have oral 2 medicine boards that will have 3 instructors like in Rad Health except only 2 will cover medicine topics and the third will cover radiation health topics. The first oral board is about half way through the medicine phase.

During the medicine phase, you will also stand duty at a local hospital in the Acute Care Clinic next to the ER. You will be there in a provider role working along side civilian MD's and will be expected to see civilian patients that have illnesses and injuries that are not life threatening and were not seen in the ER.

At the end of the Medicine phase there is a week of intensive scenario based tests that we loving refer to as "Hell Week." You will show up for school at 0500 each day. At 0600, you and your classmates will be given 5 assignments. They can be about anything that you have learned in school. They must be completed and turned in with time stamps by 1600 that same day. While you are working on your assignments, you will be called to a room somewhere in the school building and there you will be tested on anything that can be imagined. It can be something as simple as a sickcall patient, to a depressed, suicidal crewman, to a full blown heart attack. You get no help. You can't look at someone and say "dial 911" like you do in EMT school or the like, because you are on a submarine and there is no 911 and there is no help. You are submerged and unreachable. There are no "Sat Phones" to call for guidance. You are the MAN. Sink or swim, it's all up to you. Your patient will either live or die depending on your actions. You will be told during the scenario if he made it or not. Then once you get done with one patient scenario and head back to your classroom, you may walk in the door and the phone rings while you are shutting the door and it's someone telling you to report to another classroom for another scenario. Also be advised that you will be required to write detailed patient care notes on all of your scenarios and have them turned in and time stamped by 1600 that same day. At 1200 everyday you will receieve your second set of 5 "assignments" which will need to be completed, time stamped and turned in by 0600 the next day. At 0700 starting on day 2, each student will be called into the conference room where EVERY staff member will be seated around a large table and you will be scrutinized over every assignment and every patient that you saw the previous day. This will repeat everyday until around 1700 on Friday when you learn whether you did well enough and passed or not. If you're lucky and passed, you move on to the Clinical Phase. You will work in a different clinic for a week covering every clinic in a hospital. Depending on what the staff members of those clinics report about your performance, you may pass and be able to graduate or not. That's not the end yet. After 3 months of clinicals you still have another FINAL oral board. This also like the others has 3 instructors sitting it. 2 Medicine, 1 radiation health. Anything and everything that you learned in school from day 1 is fair game.

School is very difficult and it doesn't matter what your grades are like if you can't do the job. In my class, we had a person that had a GPA of 98% and failed his oral medicine board, was given a second oral board with 3 different instructors and failed again. He was dropped from school that day. During hell week, the only student in my class to go all the way through school without failing any tests all year long was dropped because he didn't pass the inspection of his program that I mentioned earlier. The first day is called and ORSE, which stands for Operational Reactor Safeguards Examination. You will hear all about this in Rad Health and if you make it to your own Submarine, you will live it for real. We lost 3 people in hell week altogether.

If you are a HM2 with an average of 91% or better at the time of graduation, you will be promoted to HM1. You will be assigned as the IDC on board a Submarine and immediately start doing the job that you just spent 15 months training to do. As a Submarine IDC you are guaranteed to go directly to an Independent billet which cannot be guaranteed by Surface IDC school.

As far as job description, imagine that you work in a clinic and all of the diffent parts have become vacant and you need to do absolutely everything, with the exception of x-rays. You will be required to be a sickcall provider, do lab work, take care of all injuries regardless of severity, be the ER Doc, be the command health educator, councelor, PMT Tech, Psych Tech, Derm Tech, Pharmacy Tech, Supply dept., Ortho Tech, ect. The best way that I can describe the Submarine IDC position is image you are on a ship with 150-170 crewman, the hatches are closed and you submerge and are cruising along at about 600 feet below the oceans surface. You are the only person with any medical experience. No matter what happens, you are called to take care of it and treat it.

My last little point about all that I have written till now is this. While at Submarine IDC, it was without a doubt the most difficult task that I had ever done to that point in my life. It seemed that it would never end and that the amount of stress that is involved was absolutely overwhelming at times. Then I got to my Submarine and learned that IDC School was a picnic and that the REAL job was even more difficult. I remember feeling overwhelmed so much during my first year that I thought that I could go back to school and do that all over again twice and it would be a cake walk. But after 3 1/2 years on my boat now, I feel that I made the right choice and that I have succeeded in a job that so many others will never experience or can even fathom.

I have only described the road to be a Submarine IDC. My background was primarily emergency medicine and Fleet Marine Force with the 1st Marine Division. If you want a job that will be able to challenge you on all levels, then I say choose Submarines. I cannot and will not speak for any other IDC Community. Each has its positives and negatives and I respect every other IDC doing the job in the Navy. We give eachother a hard time on who's the best, but we are all IDC's.

The ball is in your court. Pick it up and play!

Dale A. Lyons
HM1(SS/FMF)
Submarine IDC