Nothing makes an Army drill sargent (prounounced something like ‘Sar-Ughnt’) more testy than when a good number of his/her unit skips morning physical training.

I take that back…there’s a veritable Olympics of things competing to be the thing a drill sargent hates the most.  But showing up late for PT is definitely on the list.

One of my jobs is to set up patients with this Army thing called a Profile.  THE profile.  After a few months here, I can say in all certainty that the profile is my own personal battlefield.  Everything I do seems to revolve around this paean to administrative oversight.

Simply put, the profile defines what an injured soldier can and can’t do.  They get very specific: Soldier may mix cocktails, but d/t a herniated C-4 disk, he may not tip his head back to drink them.

One of the big reasons I see patients is to “review the profile.”  Read between the lines, and typically, the visit is really about the patient trying to get some other restriction put on their profile.  Restrictions that will make most soldiers ecstatic and drive a drill sargent nuts.

The most ubiquitous profile restriction is the “0900 work call”.  Prounounced “Oh-9 call”.

Droopy-eyed private: “Uh, man, sir, uh.  Need an Oh-9 profile.  TONS of sleep meds. Can’t get up for 0630 PT.  Help.  Desperate and all that.”

Me, Dr. Naive:  “Ok.”  Fill out form.

Private: “THANKS, man.  Can I get Oh-9 profiles for the rest of my X-Box buddies.  Now that I can stay up all night playing Soldier of Fortune, I need my buddies cuz we compete against each other.”

“Soldier of Fortune…isn’t that pretty bloody.”

Evil smile, “YEAH, totally.  We just run around shooting everybody.”

“K.  Why are you on meds again?”

“Can’t sleep.  PTSD.  Keep seeing people get shot when I close my eyes.”

Embellished only slightly, I’m coming to the point where I can’t see a SINGLE medical reason to approve someone for 0900 work call.  Sleep meds don’t last forever.  If you take them at 7pm and are in bed by 0800, you should be able to get up in time for PT.

I’m asking around to doctors I know:  Any medical reason you can think of to allow someone to come in at 0900 rather than 0630?