Being a medical professional in the Army is challenging. Doctors could find themselves working with trauma cases in Iraq. Army nurses on operational duty may have to help to set up a field hospital in Afghanistan or do guard duty at their camp. Veterinary surgeons practice equine medicine with the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment or look after military dogs. Life is rarely dull.

There is a wide range of opportunities for people who want to combine a medical background with an army career says Colonel Simon Miller, the officer in charge of recruiting for the Royal Army Medical Corps.

“The qualities we look for are similar across the board. Apart from professional competence we are looking for leadership potential, physical fitness and good team players. But the lifestyle can be tough. Sometimes our people are required to leave family and friends for a considerable length of time.”

Major Fiona Grist says: “My husband is also in the Army. He was posted to Iraq, I went to Afghanistan and my four-year-old daughter went to my parents. I’m lucky to have a brilliant support network but it is important to understand what you are getting into.”

Despite disruptions to family life Grist, now senior recruiter for Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, says her 15 years in the Army “have been fantastic”. She trained as a nurse in Glasgow, then joined up in 1994. “I started with ten weeks’ tough military training, then did a staff nurse development course as an introduction to nursing in the military.”

There are no longer any military hospitals in the UK, although six NHS hospitals have a Ministry of Defence hospital unit. Army doctors and nurses work alongside their civilian counterparts and are periodically sent abroad on operational tours. Grist has served in Bosnia and Afghanistan and has been sent to Brisbane on a four-month exchange with the Australian Army.

Captain Rob Anderson has two separate careers — one in the NHS and the other in the Territorial Army. “I have the freedom to choose where I work in both organisations. I’m not contracted by the Army and am paid as a volunteer,” he explains.

Anderson, 27, qualified as a doctor in Leeds four years ago and works in the accident and emergency department at Leeds General Infirmary. In his other role he has just returned from nine months in Afghanistan working as a reserve doctor.

“I was there if an extra doctor was needed in the unit or on a high-risk mission,” he says. “For the rest of the time I was working in the local hospital with army and Afghan civilian casualities brought in by helicopter.” He remembers vividly a nine-year-old girl victim of a suicide bomb, who was brought to the field hospital. “Her arm was blown off and she had critical injuries. We gave her basic treatment then transferred her by armoured ambulance and helicopter to the hospital. She was discharged a month later and now well-wishers have set up a fund for her education. We are not there to treat children but army doctors do everything.”

They have less paperwork and red-tape to deal with than in the NHS, Anderson says. “We can concentrate on the patients, not performance targets.”

Captain Matthew Clark worked with a veterinary charity before joining the Royal Army Veterinary Corps because the Army offered a more attractive career structure in the early stages. Based at Aldershot, the vet is responsible for the health and welfare of military working dogs. His colleagues practise equine medicine with the Household Cavalry and the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, based in London, or care for military dogs and the family pets of service families on a British base in Cyprus.

Although jobs in the outside world are becoming increasingly scarce, the Army is recruiting young doctors, dentists and physiotherapists, Miller says.

He adds: “Salary levels compare favourably with medical careers in civilian life at the early stages, while there are other benefits such as free accommodation and job security, which is a valuable asset in these difficult economic times.”

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