OK, I read this somewhere a long time ago. (I don’t remember where)
The doctor “officers” were restricted to giving valid orders within the medical chain-of-command. Was this true?
For what it’s worth, in the novel (which was based on Richard Hornberger’s real life experiences) Frank Burns was a Captain, just like Hawkeye, Trapper John, and Duke.
In the novel, Burns was an arrogant doctor from a wealthy family who wasn’t qualified to perform surgery. There was another character, Major Jonathan Hobson, who was older than the others (which explains his higher rank). Hobson was devoutly religious and annoyed the others by preaching to them. Hobson was a surgeon but not a very good one.
As you can tell, the characters of Frank Burns and Jonathan Hobson were combined into a single character (played by Robert Duvall) for the movie. This movie version of Frank Burns, minus the religion, was carried over to the TV series.
Aren’t all officers only supposed to be giving orders within their proper chain of command?
I guess I wasn’t clear. My understanding is that the doctors were given their rank rather than earning it by promotion and going through officer training (OCS?).
So in a general (snerk) sense, they weren’t real military officers.
IIRC, RNs were made lieutenants fro several reason, not least that by doing so, the enlisted men could not “fraternize” with them.
A similar rationale I’ve heard was it was done to make it easier to give orders to their patients, the vast majority of whom would be enlisted. Also before colleges & universities started offering undergraduate degrees in nursing RNs were usually trained in a 3 year diploma program at a hospital nursing school.
When 1st Cav was activated to deploy to SWA in Aug '90, we got assigned a Battalion Surgeon*. Guy was an experienced Trauma Surgeon in either Austin or San Antonio (I can’t recall), and came in Direct Commission as a Major.
For routine peacetime purposes, we had a PA assigned to us, a CW3, roughly equivalent to a Captain/O-3.
He made smart rats?
Shhh! That’s supposed to be a secret!
I was totally freaked out when I found out that NIMH was a real thing.
My sister graduated from nursing school about 1965. It was a 3 year program at a hospital. At that time in talking with RNs with a BS were few and far between. Her comment was that a RN with a BS could demand a much higher pay rate.
Before WWII and during WWII not all officers has graduated from college. At 18 a man could apply for flight school with only a HS diploma. They went through flight school as a cadet pilot. When and if the pass flight school and received their wings they were commissioned into the service as an O1. Some of the WWII aces were only just 20 years old.
My Dad who did not graduated from high school in the 1930s received a commission as a Ensign in the US Navy. His commission was a EDO commission, engineering duty only. He held merchant marine licenses as a 2 in steam and 3 in motor vessels any tonnage. With his experience he should have been commissioned as a Lt Commander, but he blew his interview with the admiral. That is another story.
He stressed out little mice.
I recall reading an autobiography of an Irish nurse who joined the British military during WW2 :- she was surprised to find she was commissioned and made a lieutenant. One of her superiors explained it was because she could end up nursing officers, and it would be unthinkable for enlisted personnel to see an officer naked.
I interpreted this to mean a doctor could use their medical doctor rank to order any patient, regardless of rank, to undergo necessary treatment. As in this scenario:
General: I must return to my command at once.
Captain and Surgeon: No sir, you must be operated on at once or you’ll die.
Who would get their way, here?
I’m remembering an episode where to get Radar (uncomfortably) into a club, Hawkeye pinned his bars on his collar, dubbing him a Corporal Captain, one rank less than a Sergeant Major.
I did not serve in the military myself, but as far as I understand military chains of command, this is true generally, and not a peculiarity of doctors and nurses. It’s not like any solider can give orders to any other soldier of inferior rank; the one being ordered must be in the chain of command of the one giving the order, and that depends not on rank but on the position held in the organisational structure.
Conversely, it’s not a peculiarity of military doctors and nurses that those of a lower rank can give instructions to those of a higher rank. Surely an MP can, in the exercise of policing duties, give instructions to a higher-ranking soldier.
There are several people of this board better suited than me to answer this question, but I’ll take a stab at it. It’s not strictly about chain-of-command. There are positions of authority, delegated authority, rank within a unit, and rank in general. The MP’s that you mentioned have a position of authority. So do instructors, firing range personnel, transport personnel, and many other examples. So a doctor who was determining a pilot’s fitness to fly would be in a position of authority, even if the pilot he was examining was senior in rank to him. I think that was a MASH episode, although I’m not sure about the ranks.
Delegated authority is when an officer or NCO instructs someone junior to them to carry out a task or lead a group to carry out that task. The junior rank is considered to have the authority of the senior rank for that task. So when Colonel Potter orders everyone in the MASH unit to take a hepatitis test, and orders Nurse Lieutenant Kelly (probably via Major Houlihan) to carry out the testing, Lt. Kelly can order Major Burns to take the test.
Rank within a unit means someone in a position of authority parallel or senior to someone in your chain of command who doesn’t have specific or delegated authority over you, but has assumed authority based on their position. So the Platoon Sergeant of 1st Platoon wouldn’t normally give orders to a squad from 2nd Platoon. But if he saw something that needed to be done, and the squad from 2nd Platoon was available, he could order them to carry out the task. The 1st Platoon Sergeant is acting in place of the 2nd Platoon Sergeant, but is doing so based on his authority and seniority within the company. Or to use a MASH example, if Captain Pierce orders the motor pool sergeant (Rizzo?) to help move the wounded, it doesn’t matter that Captain Pierce is outside that motor pool sergeant’s chain of command. The sergeant needs to follow the order, unless it’s violating another previously given order, and if he has a problem, he can take it up later with his chain of command.
Rank in general just means authority based on seniority. So if a Medical Corps (Doctor) captain sees a bunch of privates screwing around, and orders them to stop screwing around, he’s basically using his rank to impose military discipline the privates should have been following anyway. Or to expand an earlier example, suppose an infantry squad had brought a couple of wounded soldiers to the MASH and were resting before returning to their unit. More wounded arrive at the MASH and Captain Pierce orders the infantry squad members to help move the newly arrived wounded. They’d be obligated to follow his order simply because it’s an order from someone with a higher rank.
To throw a twist in the above, suppose Colonel Potter ordered the infantry squad to establish a checkpoint on the road leading into the MASH, instead of returning to their platoon. The squad leader could refuse to accept that order because he had a prior order from his platoon sergeant to return to his unit. The rank of the person giving the order matters, but it doesn’t override orders from other authorities, such as within the chain of command, even if the authority who issued the prior order has a lower rank.
A not exactly true to life example of this in something more recent than MASH is in the TV series Sherlock where Watson uses his rank, which he received as a doctor in the Royal Medical Corps, to get onto a base. He certainly has no authority on the base but is able to “pull rank” to get on.
//i\\
A qualified doctor who wants to enlist in the British Army goes through a Selection process and interview. If accepted they go on a short commissioning Course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst learning basic military, survival and weapon handling skills alongside other professionally-qualified officers. On completion, they are awarded a commission into the Army Medical Services.
After that, there is the Army Medical Services Entry Officers’ Course (EOC), which provides specific knowledge required to begin a career as an Army Doctor.
They start as a lieutenant and promotion depends on skills and qualifications after that.
OTOH, if Potter gave the command because he’d received a report of KPA troops infiltrating the area an hour before – something the platoon sergeant had no way of knowing – he would be well within his rights to expect to be obeyed.