Specialists streamlined

By Michael Brooke

A NEW program has been successfully trialled to recruit more medical specialists as reservists to support ADF peacekeeping and disaster relief operations around the world.

Under the new One Day Model (ODM) program, eight qualified medical personnel were sworn in as medical Specialist Service Officers (SSOs) in a ceremony at Victoria Barracks late last year.

The appointment of eight surgeons, GPs, anaesthetists, radiologists and nurses marked the culmination of a deliberate strategy to improve the pool of qualified medical specialist reservists by condensing the recruitment process.

Brig Mick Kehoe, Commander Logistics Support Force, said the appointments were the result of a joint initiative between 1HSB, Defence Force Recruiting and the Army Personnel Agency.

He said the ODM provided a much quicker process as it combined recruitment assessments, officer selection boards and appointments.

“This innovative program provides a one-stop shop for busy professionals to engage with the Army Reserves and was specifically designed to appoint specialist personnel with the skills required by the Army and ADF,” he said.

The ODM is a three-phase recruitment process over 12-16 weeks that begins with targeting prospective candidates, then nurturing the candidate through pre-enlistment requirements including testing, and finally the selection board before appointment in the reserves.

The new medical SSOs said they were looking forward to the challenge of deploying on operations. They will be eligible for deployment once they have completed the two-week SSO foundation course at RMC in April.

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