Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FKIK) of Universtitas Muhammdiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) collaborating with the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) conducted a talk ‘Career and Profession of Military Physicians on Wednesday (28/3) at Siti Walidah Building of UMY. The talk aimed to promote a career occasion to work to be military physicians.

Commodore dr. Arie Zakaria, SpOT, Sp.KL, FICS as Director of Health of Directorate General of Defense of Ministry of Defense stated that the military-owned health personnel in Army (TNI-AD), Navy (TNI-AL), and Air Force (TNI-AU) is few. “Military physicians’ duties are the same as doctors generally which are implementing medical sciences, working in special areas, and taking care of people even during war. Those are our contribution to this nation because in the military we have oath, code of ethics, discipline and hierarchy, and bond in a health corps. Indeed, we are also engaged in national and international missions, take formal and military education, and possess physical and mental health,” explained Arie.

Arie inserted that several steps to have a career in a military area and everyone possibly gets it. “Military career paths are basic development, task introduction (Second Lieutenant), consolidation (Lieutenant/Captain), capacity building (Major/Lieutenant Colonel), professional development (Lieutenant Colonel), advanced development work (Colonel) and Darma Bakti (General/Admiral/Marshal). Besides, other functional duties are as a leader, commander, head, structural positions, health functional personnel, supervisors, instructors and researchers. We can pass all the military paths if we commit to be military physicians,” declared Arie.

He also emphasized that military physicians should be ready to get responsibility in various areas. “We will work on ship if we are marine military physicians, submarine health, and sea flights. When we work as an army, we can also perform community service in remote areas, hospitals, and the Indonesian military. We now need a lot of military physicians who devote themselves in the military. Thus, I expect that medical students are interested in registering in the military because we will not do any discrimination during the recruitment,” maintained Arie.