Andreas - Thanks for the encouragement. Not sure what's up with debcheckout since it works fine if I add the --package option as below:
In it's original form this fails on my latest upgraded/updated Jessie test system:
iankarlwallace@debian-dev:~$ debcheckout --user iankarlwallace-guest --git-track '*' git://git.debian.org/debian-med/openemr.git
declared git repository at git+ssh://iankarlwallace-guest@git.debian.org/git/debian-med/openemr.git
git clone git+ssh://iankarlwallace-guest@git.debian.org/git/debian-med/openemr.git openemr ...
Cloning into 'openemr'...
remote: Counting objects: 6075, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (4520/4520), done.
remote: Total 6075 (delta 1274), reused 5760 (delta 1111)
Receiving objects: 100% (6075/6075), 73.34 MiB | 3.30 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1274/1274), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
Branch pristine-tar set up to track remote branch pristine-tar from origin.
Branch upstream set up to track remote branch upstream from origin.
Use of uninitialized value $srcpkg in substitution (s///) at /usr/bin/debcheckout line 832.
If I remove the directory and try again by adding the --package option telling debcheckout that the package is openemr then everything works as expected. Very strange ... very strange indeed.
iankarlwallace@debian-dev:~$ debcheckout --user iankarlwallace-guest --git-track '*' --package openemr git://git.debian.org/debian-med/openemr.git
declared git repository at git+ssh://iankarlwallace-guest@git.debian.org/git/debian-med/openemr.git
git clone git+ssh://iankarlwallace-guest@git.debian.org/git/debian-med/openemr.git openemr ...
Cloning into 'openemr'...
remote: Counting objects: 6075, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (4520/4520), done.
remote: Total 6075 (delta 1274), reused 5760 (delta 1111)
Receiving objects: 100% (6075/6075), 73.34 MiB | 3.07 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1274/1274), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
Branch pristine-tar set up to track remote branch pristine-tar from origin.
Branch upstream set up to track remote branch upstream from origin.
iankarlwallace@debian-dev:~$
Will probably just go back to using Andrea's method but can debug further if there is interest.